


Echad, We Are One

by HawkTooth



Series: Two Worlds Collide [6]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Family, Humor, Multiple Crossovers, Romance, Tragedy, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-09 19:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 43
Words: 221,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawkTooth/pseuds/HawkTooth
Summary: The 6th Book of the Two Worlds Collide series. Hiccup, Toothless, Hawken and the gang have survived many ordeals together, growing as a team, but both worlds are far from finished with challenges and secrets. Enemies of old still set their sights on fracturing the peace that has prevailed, with a dangerous and growing array of tricks to threaten the balance of even life itself.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> And welcome to the 6th Book in the series! As with the others so far, if you haven't read (or at least skimmed, as might be recommended for the earliest ones) the previous books, you're going to want to before continuing here otherwise you'll be confused. Those who read the tags might notice some odd character inclusions and tags, as well as the lack of archive warnings; explanations for each and why will come in time. This was once going to be the finishing piece to the series (before one more tale revealed itself to me), so there's a lot to cover up ahead. Join me, as we start with a siege on Rome...

Timing was everything. The atmosphere was peaceful, the late summer sun warming the Mediterranean hills that surrounded the area and bringing with it a cool, soft breeze from the nearby Tyrrhenian Sea. Birds sang from the trees and their nests atop buildings, the scent of slowly ripening grapes wafted from the vineyards, and it all built up to provide a picture like that of a fitting fairytale.

The city looked so perfectly calm in its ignorance. Not a soul below could have possibly foreseen the events to soon unfold of course, but nevertheless he chuckled at the thought. The so-called center of civilization in Europe was none the wiser, hustling and bustling with merchants and civilians alike as if it were just as every other day, with people going about their daily lives replete with their own superficial ups and downs and completely oblivious to the changes to come.

It was time; he glanced casually over at his companion, and gestured to the city. “Well, shall we?” he asked. The figure nodded.

They descended down the hill, meandering as if without a care in the world as they wanted not to draw any serious attention until they actually reached the buildings themselves. The man entered first, walking down the dusty street toward the better cared-for cobblestone roads further in. He drew attention himself, dressed in an outfit that no one in this place would have recognized, with its crisp woven fabrics and precise matte colors, but the companion that followed behind him truly gathered the eyes of the crowd, fearful stares funneling in from the civilians they passed and a handful of startled yells rising up, before being silenced so as to not draw attention to themselves.

The edge of the city was no good for their intent, however, so the pair continued in toward the heart of the array of buildings, knowing already their presence would be whispered about through the crowds. All the better that way though, the man thought. Once far enough in he stopped, looked around, and nodded. “Let’s not waste any more time here. Begin.”

His companion straightened, a savage grin stretching across his face, and he lifted up the massive gun he bore to aim it toward the biggest building he could find nearby. “With pleasure,” he sneered, and fired.

The shots rang out like echoing cannon blasts, the rapid fire tearing through the bricks and mortar of the structure he targeted. Some of the rounds exploded on impact for added effect, bringing the top half of the building crumbling down to the streets below. Screams of terror mixed with anguish began to echo through the city as the two continued down the street, heading toward a clear square from which a straight view of the emperor’s home could be had. The figure with the weapon continued to fire at random as he moved, wherever he pleased.

When they reached the square, the man halted, his companion leveled the gun up toward the palace on the hill, and they waited patiently, listening to the chaos they had created. It wasn’t long before the city guard appeared, surrounding the square with their swords and spears at the ready, flanked from behind by numerous terrified but inexplicably curious civilians. At the sight of the pair before them however, every one of the soldiers stopped cold. The man grinned, knowing now he had all the audience he possibly needed.

“People of Rome!” he shouted. “I know my entrance here has left you frightened, confused, but I assure you I am not interested simply in destruction. I am here on very important business, and I don’t intend to make it wait. You see what my friend here can do,” he gestured to the figure with the gun, “and he is not the last ally I have of such power to call upon. My request is simple, but if it is not complied with I have no qualms of leveling this city and everyone in it before moving on to find a location more accommodating. Knowing this, are you prepared to listen to what I ask?”

Silence reigned for a stifling period, before the weapons of the guard lowered slightly, and the crowd gave reluctant nods.

“Good,” the man said, crossing his arms and continuing his address. “I am in search of a single soul, a boy who has the powers of dragons at his command.” Immediately whispers began to run through the crowd, and the man smiled all the more; they knew of whom he spoke.  
“I see you have heard of him,” he drawled. “That is most perfect, for I require someone to seek out this boy, and bring him here. My companion and I will stay at this city until this is done; if you do not comply, well, you already heard what my intent will be. Now,” his gaze swiveled across the crowd, “who here will be the one willing to take on this task for me? Who knows where the dragon man is?”

Once more the streets fell silent. They had all heard of him, for tales of what had occurred drifted from the north all the time, but few present were well-traveled, and fewer still had any knowledge of where to look for the dragon man.

Finally, however, a hand rose from the back of the crowd. People parted as a middle-aged man slowly made his way forward. Trembling in fear not only of the pair before him but also of what he knew the boy might do if he ever returned to that island, let alone the friends he possessed, the man presented himself as well as he could before the threatening pair.

The newcomer looked this volunteer over: dressed in scarlet robes that once depicted a powerful status, now they were dirty and tattered, telling of a past that had not been kind.

“I-I know where to find him,” the robed man said, “b-but if I were to leave now it is still at best a nearly two month journey there and two more back. At worst, I could not be able to return for six.”

“Then you’d best gather what you need and be on your way,” the newcomer quipped. “I am a patient man, but only to a limit.” The civilian nodded, before pressing another question. “And what should I say to him, to make him come here? He will not come entirely willingly all this way, not without reason. Who are you?” “Who I am is of no consequence,” the man replied. “And what you say matters little. He won’t leave a city helpless, not if he’s still as I once knew; he’ll come.”

The man in tattered robes nodded again, and turned to leave, more than ready to be out of this person’s presence and be on his way to find the only chance they now had. Before he left however, the newcomer spoke once more. “Let me remind you of course,” he said lowly, menacingly, “what happens if you do not return within six months’ time: we will bring down your emperor’s house with him inside it, and then the church of the Vatican, followed systematically by the rest of this city until every brick is reduced to sand. Then, we will search you out and deal with you accordingly before I find the dragon boy myself and drag him here to finish the business I have started.”


	2. Four Months Before

I know that I have said it before, but I’ll say it again: summer is a wonderful time.

It was very early June, just a little while after my sister got out of school, and after yet another incredibly cold winter both at home and in Berk I just had to get out and enjoy the warm breeze that was filling the air again. It was a perfect day for flying too: crystal clear and not a cloud in the sky, a high pressure system settling over Colorado and providing great thermals, and visibility for miles in every direction.

Late morning therefore found me in Night Fury form, gliding high above the Rocky Mountains below. Okay, gliding isn’t the right word: I was playing in the air, diving, rolling, and dodging the trees near the ground as I swept through the valleys and over the ridges of the range. It was the first day I’d really had open for such activities, so I was taking it with both paws.

Eventually, I tired out a bit and did settle into just riding the thermals, watching beneath me as nature played its course in the national park I’d practically grown up in. I liked the hot, humid conditions of the south, and Berk was like a second house now, but the wild sweeps of Colorado had always been, and would always be my original home. Nothing matched it; even Thor’s Peak on Berk, which rose up high enough that snow never melted at the summit, was dwarfed by the 14,000 foot peaks that I once hiked amongst, and now soared amongst.

Herds of elk were grazing in the high alpine meadows, a lone coyote pack wandered the moraine basin away from the park’s trails, and the daily flood of tourists, campers, and long-time hikers meandered the roads and pathways as they watched the scene as well. Though as always, with me being up in the air enjoying myself, a crowd began to gather as well for the unique opportunity of watching a dragon in flight. Eventually it got old though as it always did, and I soared off toward a hopefully less-populated region of the park, looking for a peaceful afternoon.

Turns out that wasn’t the best plan either. I flew low over the pines along a rising mountain, daydreaming as my music played in the air around me (more on that later), and just as I crested a low ridge, something small, fast, and painful pierced straight through my wing. I screeched in both pain and surprise and faltered in my flight, before cutting the music and healing the tiny hole in my wing membrane. Then I glanced downward to locate what it was that may have hit me; from where the pain had started, the projectile had come from the ground.

It didn’t take too long to find the perpetrator: a probably 40-something guy stood amongst the trees, holding a high-power hunting rifle and dressed in camouflage attire, aiming the barrel at me. My eyes narrowed and I folded my wings, spilling air and diving down immediately, dropping out of his line of fire and gliding into the trees. Moments later I flared my wings and landed in front of the startled hunter. The reason he was dumb enough to take a shot at a dragon also immediately became clear: against one of the trees nearby was his bag, and hanging out of it was a half-empty case of beer.

“I hope you will realize I could have you arrested at once for attempted murder, hunting in a protected area without license, and whatever they might have on top of that for operating a firearm whilst horribly inebriated?” I asked lowly, not bothering to morph back. In response, the man jerked and stumbled back slightly in surprise, nearly losing his footing in his intoxication.

“Talking bird,” he muttered. “I musta….I musta hallucinatin’!” He blinked a couple of times, before waving the barrel of his gun at me again. “You-you not talk, bird!”

I sighed; this conversation was reaching a painful level already, and the other party hadn’t even managed one decent sentence. “Alright,” I growled, “you can’t tell the difference between a 30 foot dragon and a bird. I think it’s high time we took a nice short trip to the closest ranger’s station.”

Without giving him time to protest, I spread my wings and leapt forward, grabbing his bag in one front paw and snagging his vest with the other, making sure in the process he dropped his gun which I also picked up with my hind legs as we gained altitude. Being as far under as he was, the man yelled and squirmed a fair bit, but he couldn’t quite gain the leverage to put up a serious fight, so our flight together was blessedly short.

* * *

My run-in with the trigger-happy drunk ruined the mood for further free-flying, so after I left him in the hands of the proper authorities (along with all the evidence they needed to take care of him; apparently this wasn’t the first offense from this guy as one of them recognized him immediately), I took off toward home.

Even just gliding, as a Night Fury the trip from Rocky Mountain National Park to my home was at best 30 minutes to my house, and wide open skies the whole way. The plains spread out ahead of me, a patchwork of small towns and farmlands that stretched out from the foothills, and a few miles out, my neighborhood appeared in view. Minutes later, I folded my wings and dropped, landing with practiced ease in the center of my back yard.

Demorphing, I walked up to the back door and slid it open, stepping inside. Holly was at the table, working away on…something I did not immediately recognize. She’d become a teenager of many talents, not the least of which included writing, artistry, singing, and more recently a serious love of various weaponry. The shape of the object on the table, with curved, smooth edges, suggested something related to the latter.

I smirked and sauntered over to the table myself, taking a seat and holding my hand open. My new MP3 materialized, and I set it down carefully on the tablecloth. I mentioned earlier about the music, but the player was only part of the fun: a few years before there had been a book series I had greatly enjoyed, and it featured a very unusual dragon, one that could act like a living interface with technology.

Being naturally curious as I was I decided to try something similar. Thanks to my capacity to morph, and the Lightning Blazer’s electrokinetic traits, I quickly found out I could do the same thing: connect directly to computers and other forms of technology just by touching them, and what was more fun I found I could mentally navigate everything most people needed a mouse and a keyboard for. Hence, after buying something to store away songs I found great pleasure in being able to play them out loud anywhere I went. It beats having to carry around a set of speakers or a pair of headphones, that was for sure.

Holly glanced over at my player, and then up at me, a faint smile appearing. “Enjoy your flight?” she asked. I shrugged.

“Eh, up until the point where an alcoholic with a rifle took a shot at me, but that’s taken care of,” I drawled. “What are you working on?” “Stuff.” “I assumed as much, Holly. You want to give a straight answer for once in your life?”

Holly grinned and reached over to pick up the object on the table, pulling it apart. A pair of Mysteel blades appeared from inside their wrapped double hilts, gleaming with black and red highlights.

I sighed. “You got Astrid to hound on Hiccup for you, didn’t you?” “Yeah,” she admitted unapologetically, “plus I also got permission from Mom and Dad beforehand too. I’m actually heading out to the cove in a couple of hours so we can do some training, and Ember said she’d be joining in as well.”

I glanced out the window of the sliding door. “Well, that actually works out then. I’ve got a project I want to work on that I need to be alone for, and before you ask why I’m going to say it’s a surprise and I won’t tell you.” Now my focus returned to Holly, or more specifically the scimitars she held. “Just be safe, will you? I won’t be nearby to fix it if an accident happens, and I know you know what Mysteel can do.”

Holly groaned. “Yes, I know what it can do. I’ll be fine, okay?”

I nodded. “Good. I need to go find Hiccup before I get to work on this, so I don’t know when I’ll be back here. If I don’t see you before you leave, bye!”

Holly waved me off, clearly done with listening to my protective rambling, and I headed out to the portal. Once through, as always, I morphed and took off, noting as usual the very cloudy atmosphere of my second home; there would probably be a minor storm later that afternoon.

Nearly a year after our last major skirmish, Berk hadn’t changed much, but where it had was noteworthy. Over time many of the buildings had been almost completely reinforced with Mysteel, for more reasons than just fire prevention; turns out the insulative properties of the odd metal kept houses warmer during winter, cutting down on the use of firewood (especially in conjunction with warm dragons), and the frequent heavy rain and hail storms of summer were quieted by the metal as well. More dragons had also flocked to Berk to call the island home, permanently or temporarily, in no small part due to the shared relations the island now had with the nest of Tohar the Bewilderbeast to the north.

Most noteworthy, perhaps: Hiccup had over winter fashioned a system for running water, drawing it from the streams and seeps of the mountains behind the village and coursing it through insulated Mysteel pipes into the village proper. When the project had been unveiled, a great sigh of relief was taken by the residents, not only because it was easier than digging wells but also in no small part due to the fact that Gobber could no longer run so easily from bath day now.

The forge had also slowly been morphing, growing larger as Gobber and Hiccup built up extra space for the four people and numerous dragons that now regularly occupied it. Granted, while we all now sort of had our own personal work spaces, we often moved freely between the different rooms and various stations within, and so still managed to end up under each other’s feet.

As I glided in to land outside the smithy, it quickly became obvious one such occupant was working away within, and in a rather chipper mood as I heard singing coming from the oft-dubbed “Myscale station” that Hiccup, Ember and I frequented. I grinned, recognizing the owner of the voice as well as the song he was singing almost immediately.

“…in the sky, wake up so high, away. Let’s make it around, let’s play with it! We go where no one goes, we slow, for no one…cannot hold us!”

Hiccup was completely oblivious as I walked up behind him, his music playing just loud enough, and his singing even more so, to mask my already soft steps against the stone floor. I wasn’t the only one who had their own MP3 now; feeling generous around my last birthday, I’d bought one as well for both Hiccup and Astrid each, and loaded up songs I knew they liked along with showing them how to load their own at my house. Hiccup was playing ‘Where No One Goes’ from….well, if you’re reading this now I’m sure you probably know where it’s from.

“We ain’t slowing down, we ain’t coming o-over! We’re circling low-!”

“Hi Hiccup!”

“Aaaahhhh! What the-?!”

He jerked in shock at finally noticing me standing behind him, before quickly scrambling to hide away whatever it was he’d been working on and turn off his music player. “Geez, give a guy a heart attack why don’t you?!” he complained.

“Hey, I wasn’t exactly being silent as I walked in here,” I returned lightheartedly. “It was your music and your own nasally voice that was drowning me out.” “Hey, I’m not that bad!” “Eh, depends on who you ask, but then again it’s the same for me. Great song, though.”

Hiccup snorted and shrugged. “Yeah, one of the ones from that movie I actually liked enough to keep around. Anyway, what are you doing here? I thought you’d be out flying today.”

I shrugged and turned away, pulling out a sheet of Night Fury Myscale and looking it over. “Well, I was, up until some idiot tried to shoot me. Kind of ruined the mood, you know?”

“Tell me about it,” Hiccup drawled, smirking; we’d both had our close calls. I nodded. “Actually, though, I came here to let you know I’m going to be working on a new project and I might be absent for a few days.”

“Must be some project then,” he said, pulling out what had become to all of us a very familiar Myscale contraption.

I nodded. “Yeah, it is. I see you’re busy still too; the wings almost done? Or your outfit?” “Well, I didn’t overdo it quite like they did in the movie,” Hiccup replied, “but yeah. I still have to figure out how to make the wings work though. You know, something a little more than gliding and controlled falling.” “Yeah, because you’ve got that second part down.”

Hiccup ignored the prod, but smirked nonetheless. “The second Toothless heard about it he tried to drag me out of the forge too. That’s one thing they got spot-on; his attitude about it.”

I nodded, before glancing down at the drawer where he’d placed whatever he’d had out when I walked in. “Speaking of projects and certain black dragons, two more questions: one, what was it that you put away down there in such a hurry?”

Hiccup winced. “Uh, just-just another personal thing. I don’t really want anyone seeing it yet, if you don’t mind.” I smirked, but let the topic drop. “Okay, fine. Question two: how’s our own resident Night Fury doing, anyway?”

The room immediately felt a little tighter. Hiccup tried to smile, before simply sighing and putting down his new version of the wing suit. “Well, with his new position as an Alpha here he’s kept pretty busy by other dragons,” he said quietly, “though considering he was the head reptile on the island before, it’s not terribly different anyway. As for the other context,” he looked around, checking out the windows to make sure Toothless wasn’t immediately nearby, before lowering his voice, “well, there are times. He still sulks occasionally, and I’ve seen tears on rare occasions. He hides it if he thinks anyone else is looking, but that tipoff is still hitting him hard.”

To remind the readers of the situation: in our last battle with the sorceress Jezebel, it was told to us by that woman, none-too-kindly either, that Toothless was, in fact, the very last Night Fury known to be alive. Jezebel herself had wiped out almost the entire rest of the race, which was terrible enough, but then Toothless later told us something even worse.

We knew the very last one other than our draconic brother was taken as a trophy by Drago Bludvist, and the cloak that the homicidal warlord wore was made from its skin, but Toothless had informed us that the story went deeper. His father had been killed before he’d ever hatched, and Toothless and his mother were the last two either of them knew of. With Toothless still being around…well, the remainder of the tale I’ll leave to be inferred. The Night Fury and Drago had a history, one of the things that had driven him and Hiccup so fervently against Drago in that battle.

I sighed and leaned against the wall, putting the Myscale sheet I held back in its drawer. “Well, hopefully we’ll find something soon to remedy that case of dark thoughts,” I said quietly. “At the very least he’s being kept busy and his mind elsewhere most of the time, but I just hope the other dragons aren’t getting too rambunctious around him.”

<Eh, if they do, I just pass them on to Hiccup,> a new, now welcome voice spoke up. <We all know he’s better at dealing with them anyway.>

The owner of the voice landed outside and sauntered in, bright green eyes landing on Hiccup, who snorted again. “Yeah, sure Toothless, just shirk all your responsibilities onto me,” he drawled. <Hey, it’s not like I knew that’d be the outcome,> the Night Fury protested. <We all knew you were the Dragon Whisperer anyway; Hawken’s present to us just made you better at the job. Besides, at least I have Cloudjumper and Spitfire to help me most of the time.> He looked over at me, and gave his signature toothless grin. <So, how’s your day been?>

I chuckled. “Oh, you know, got shot at, but that’s nothing new for us. I came here to let you guys know that I’m taking a leave of absence to work on a project of my own, actually. I’ll be gone a couple of days, but if it all works out I might have a serious surprise in store when I get back.”

<Oh?> Toothless toned. <What’s the project?> “Something I’d like to leave as a surprise for now, thank you.” The dragon smirked, and looked sidelong at Hiccup. <Oh, okay. Kind of like the thing Hiccup’s working on that he doesn’t want-> “Toothless!”

I chuckled. “Sure, something like that. Anyway, I’ll leave you two to your business now, or dorking around as you do”- they both shot me looks, and I only smiled wider, “-and I’ll be back soon enough!” I turned to leave, and Hiccup called out, “Don’t do anything stupid while you’re gone, okay?” I laughed as I took to the air, calling back, “Oh come on now Hiccup, you know none of us can really promise that!”

Gliding back home, I found my sister had already left the house, heading off to train with Astrid. With one less person to worry about, I headed to my room, and began my preparations.

A few years before while in ceramics class at school, I’d finished out a project consisting of making sculptures of a number of various dragon species, like the Nightmare, Nadder, and Night Fury, along with a few other creatures and characters I happened to like. It was these sculptures, along with a couple of special toys, that I pulled off my shelves and began carefully placing into barrier field “boxes” (which beat trying to carry them in a bunch of flimsy cardboard containers). Once they were all together, I hoisted up the motley crew and carefully headed out of the house and back through the portal.

I had searched the island a few times on my own before, and at one point I’d stumbled across a small, sheltered cove high up in the mountains; it was a spot where nothing else could get to, not without being able to fly. It was there that I now headed, a spot where none of the animals on Berk would bother me, and secluded enough that none of the dragons that frequented the area would find too soon either.

The project I was about to attempt to put into motion was rather daring and unorthodox, and there was a fairly high chance of it failing too, I knew. But, under the circumstances that it worked as I hoped, there would be a great deal of good news to go along with it. Our “family” that we had all formed (me, my family, the teens etc.) would get just a little bigger and more interesting, Berk’s fighting forces would be that much stronger, and I’d have a new, perhaps slightly less risky means of starting to break my final major secret to my own world.

Plus, there was just enough of a chance that Toothless would get a surprise he desperately needed, and that alone was more than enough for me to stay set in determination to make this work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, the lyrics Hiccup's singing aren't accurate...but then, if I didn't quite catch them right away, what were the chances he would? Also forewarning: the next couple chapters might read a little odd, hard to describe exactly what I was trying to convey, but bear with me. The results are the important part.


	3. Chaim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter with a special title; this one is particularly important. Any guesses? As is often the case, the poem below might provide a first clue...

_A light within so burning bright_

_Breath that blows away the night_

_A spark that spreads from one to next_

_Awake from once eternal rest_

_Life is shared from man to man_

_A gift that’s given from its own hand_

_Yet only life may bring more life_

_Only One can give from death and strife_

The cove was as untouched as it had been the day I’d stumbled across it, the sheer cliffs surrounding three sides cut only where a small stream poured out from the small pond nestled within. A cavernous overhang jutted out over one end of the space, providing shelter from the elements along with a proper space for me to begin my project.

Very carefully, I touched down within the cove and placed my makeshift containers on the ground. Then, I set apart each of the objects that I’d brought along: a clay Terrible Terror, Zippleback, Nadder, Night Fury, Monstrous Nightmare, and a dinosaur modeled after a character named Zipeau. In addition to the sculptures, I also set out a stuffed toy king cobra, a Siberian tiger, and another tiger model I had a different intent for. I spaced them all well apart so that I would have room to work, and then one by one, I began the process of change, bringing each to life-size first. The second toy tiger I worked slightly differently; it remained a cat, but as I increased its size so also I changed its appearance: the orange-and-black striped pattern morphed vibrantly, revealing bright blues, greens, yellows, and other colors in dazzling details to replace it. Two pairs of enlarged fangs appeared, one arching downward like those of a saber-toothed cat and the other facing forward like tusks.

Okay, perhaps I should back up a little and explain the harebrained attempt that I was undertaking. I had mentioned previously a book series that I once read, with the dragon possessing technological abilities. There’s a little more to it than that however: the dragons featured did not occur as a naturally existing species; rather, they started out as clay sculptures, brought to life by a gifted individual.

In the books it was done via a variety of magic powers and sorcery, however I had always seen such things turning out to be a mimicry of natural abilities (like Jezebel’s twisted mirrors of what I and others could do), and had formed a theory of my own on how something similar could be done, but more, eh, naturally. I had already known that I could to a small extent alter forms of matter, as well as control and convert energy. With those together, there was a chance that I could pass life on to a few new friends.

Once I had brought each of the characters to life size models (a tiring feat in and of its own right; conversion of energy to physical matter takes a lot of power), I waited a little while for my strength to build up again. This was the entire reason why I had predicted I would be gone for a few days at least: I had limits as to how much I could do at a time, and at times the amount of energy it took to create matter far exceeded that of the bombs I had defused when fighting Jezebel. The next step, changing it from one form to another at a large scale, would be at least equally so, especially now that I had far larger models to work with. The Macawnivore alone (the colorful cat I described before) was almost twenty feet long, the cobra thirty.

I sat down and took in a deep breath, fighting off fatigue that was already building; this was definitely going to take a while.

* * *

The sound of clashing metal blades filled the air, as if a great battle were taking place in such an otherwise peaceful atmosphere. If any outsider were to be watching the proceedings it would have appeared so as well; a fight for life and death. However, the participants in this particular battle were grinning wildly rather than grimacing from the effort of fending for their lives.

SCHWWANNG!! “So, did your brother tell you”- “CLANG!! “-anything about what it was he was doing? I saw”- SMACK!!! “-saw him leave earlier for the mountains but didn’t get a chance to ask.” ZZZIIINNNNGGG!!

Holly scoffed as she deflected the blow. “Oh please Astrid, you know how he is. He doesn’t tell anyone anything unless they can”- “CCCLAANNNNGG!!! ZZZIPPP!! “-beat it out of him. I’ve lived in the same house with him for thirteen years; if I don’t know how to make him talk, no one does.”

Her opponent nodded, then twisted and swiped her axe back around in Holly’s direction. “Well, hopefully he’s not going overboard this time. Every new project that starts between him and”- SCHEWWWW!! “-Hiccup gets a little more out there as time goes by.”

The two continued sparring for a few minutes more, both of them working up a heavy sweat. Ember watched from the sidelines, joining in the conversation periodically, and Orhaganuz and Thorn ran around the other end of the cove. Due to Astrid’s gift with speed and strategy, the only two people truly on par with her in a battle of blades were Camicazi (who shared the same gift) and Hawken. However, in a manner of speaking that meant there was no one better for Holly to learn from, and they both knew it.

Holly, meanwhile, had over the past year become a sort of jack-of-all-trades when it came to weapons. If it was sharp or could do damage, she knew how to use it, and use it well. Because of this, she had also found new ways to help Astrid train in return; no matter how fast you are, it take a lot of practice to deflect arrows and sharpened Shuriken thrown by a very, very accurate thirteen-year-old girl.

The two sparring partners eventually broke apart for a moment or needed rest, and sat down with Ember on a series of small boulders the teens had come to label “the meeting place” due to the circular pattern they were in.

“You’re getting faster, which is definitely good,” Astrid noted as she leaned back against her rock. “I only nicked your armor a couple of times. A few more months and you’ll be able to hold up in a real combat situation around here.”

“Well, I know you’re also holding back still as well,” Holly drawled, taking a drink from her water bottle. Astrid snorted. “If I didn’t you’d have been skewered thirty times over by now.” “Aww, come on, I’m wearing armor, aren’t I?” “And you know as well as I do that Myscale is still softer than Mysteel.”

Holly pouted at this, though more for show than anything serious. “Fine, you win,” she admitted sarcastically, before glancing over at Ember. “Hey, on another topic, you think Orha would be willing to help out with my perception training again? Or did I scare him away too badly last time?”

Ember chuckled, and glanced over at the Shadowracer, who had laid down by the trees in the cove. “Hey Orha!” she called out. “You up for a little ‘Holly training’ today?” Orha’s head came up as he looked at her, then at Holly, and his eyes widened in concern. “Is she going to try and use actual weapons on me again like last time?” he asked warily.

Astrid put everything into biting back the laugh that surged in her; she’d heard all about that incident, one of the few times Holly had actually decided to try an idea passed on from Ruffnut.

Holly, on the other hand, crossed her arms and groaned. “No, I won’t!” she quipped. “I said sorry already, geez! And my brother already chewed me out over it plenty; do we really have to revisit that day in detail?” She got up and walked over to the backpack she’d drug along, and pulled out a plastic sack, inside which were several dozen carefully filled water balloons. Holly pulled out one and held it up. “I’ll use these.”

Orha sat motionless for a time, eyes narrowing as he debated it; after all, he was the one that was the moving target. Eventually, he let out a huff and nodded. “Fine. But if I end up dropping you in the pond it will be your own fault.”

“Very well,” Holly commented, grinning as she adjusted the hold on her first balloon. When she glanced back in the Shadowracer’s direction, Orha had already vanished, his specialized scales warping the light around him and blanketing him almost completely from view; the game was on.

Holly pushed her glasses up carefully and peered closely, looking to spot the slight movements of grass, water, or even the faint rippling of the air that Ember had taught her to look for. Even the slightest things could be a giveaway.

A few moments passed silently, Ember and Astrid watching with bored semi-interest, before Holly finally spotted a puff of dust trickling down from the side of the cliff nearby. She grinned, wound up, and threw her ammo as hard as she could. The balloon sailed through the air in a perfect spiral, and…splatted anticlimactically against the rocks.

Holly frowned as Orha chuckled, moving to a completely new spot as the teen grabbed her next balloon and began searching again.

Two more attempts ended with the same results, but finally on the fourth balloon, Holly zeroed in on the depression Orha’s front foot was making in the thin grass of the cove. She wasted no time, lining up and throwing perfectly to finally nail the Shadowracer in the side.

“Yes! Finally!” Holly crowed, pumping her fists in the air, before an entirely new thought crossed her mind, something she’d planned on before she had come; it was summer, in her mind the perfect time to mess around. She picked up two more balloons, and turned as if aiming for the dragon again. “Now, to celebrate a successful shot,” she drawled, grinning mischievously.

Astrid caught the teen girl’s tone almost immediately, and knowing Holly she immediately deduced what the girl had in mind. However, she still didn’t manage to get up fast enough to avoid Holly spinning and throwing her balloon, nailing Astrid right in the chest as she attempted to dive for cover.

Astrid yelped despite herself, catching Ember’s attention. The latter began laughing at the sight of a dripping wet Astrid before she, too, spotted the balloon also heading her way.

“Aaahhhh! Holly!”

SPLAT!

This one was even more on target, splatting right across Ember’s face and causing her to slip off her rock, sputtering and spitting out water before glaring at Holly, who was now rolling on the ground with laughter herself.

“Oh, you’re sooo getting it now!” Astrid growled, failing to hide her own grin however as she raced to Holly’s sack of balloons and pulling a couple out herself. Holly choked on her laugh and scrambled to get up, but got hit in the back before she even got to her knees.

Ember followed suit, grabbing a couple of the balloons herself and skirting to the side, throwing one at Holly herself before flinging the second at Astrid.

“Ahh! Hey!”

“Free for all!” Holly yelled, laughing as she raced by, grabbing the pack the balloons had come out of and pulling out another weapon as she darted away: a water pistol.

“You had this all planned, didn’t you?” Astrid laughed, realizing what the younger girl had in her hands. Holly nodded, her grin returning. “Of course I did! It’s summer, what did you expect?” She squirted Astrid in the face, before turning and launching a stream at an entirely new target. Thorn squawked in surprise as the cold water splattered across her wing, before the Nadder bobbed her head in play and swept her wing into the pond, drenching Holly and Orha simultaneously.

The rest of the afternoon went similarly, the three girls and two dragons present chasing each other around with their toys and soaking the entire area, not caring one whit that it would take them forever to dry off; they were just having too much fun.

* * *

Watching cotton, clay, and other materials morph into real fur and scales is a rather oddly disturbing image; however, considering the morphing I did every day it wasn’t as much of a bother to me. Even more disturbing though, the flesh and muscles underneath the exterior of each figure made odd noises as it formed and found its place, making me shudder. There was a reason I’d never been much for hunting, and knowing what was under the skin was mostly it.

This second step took me the better part of the remaining afternoon, ending up being a slow, exhausting process, but not soon enough it did come to an end, and surrounding me now were actual animals, held still in their original postures only by virtue of their formerly rigid making. After all, they could not yet be considered alive.

That next and final step would indeed be the hardest one, and the step that I feared would be the one to end in failure, if any of them did. It would take an incalculable amount of energy to finally pull it off; every creature would need at least a kilowatt of electricity to start up both the heart and neural processes of the brain (the body runs on electricity, as many say), plus an unknown level of the “dark energy” I still theorized powered my own abilities in order to implant at least a rudimentary structure for memory, cognitive function, and above all simply a starting point for each to actually live.

The hardest part of it was that I didn’t want to go through with this one by one either. If it worked, I didn’t want to have to explain everything over and over again to each new arrival, and I didn’t want to find myself getting only halfway through and unable to continue.

So, I sat down, taking deep breaths and taking drinks from the crystal clear pond in the sheltered cove (nothing lived in it, fed only by snowmelt from above after all) as I built up the electrical power and other energy forms needed until it was nearly 8:00 in the evening, and then I made my attempt. Streamers and rivulets of energy rippled outward toward each of the figures, heating the air around me and making the walls of the cove glow with a symphony of colors.

It didn’t work. Each streamer failed to bond with any of the figures, each one rippling and flowing over the skin and dissipating, but doing nothing further. I sat down, letting the energy fade away as I started racking my brain for whatever might have been the key.

“Okay,” I muttered to myself, “what’d I miss? Electricity, mental energy for the starting jolt, a proper delivery mechanism like the defib”-

I stopped as a realization finally hit me. “A catalyst.”

The thought made me frown, as it was so plain; how had I missed it? It was a lesson I had learned many times over, painted biblically as well as in the scientific world, and it was an important one where this was concerned: only life ever begets life. Living organisms never just spontaneously appeared; something dead cannot be caused to live without the addition of a source of life already extant. Yah could do such a thing, but a human? No.

In order to make something like this work, I needed a source of something already living, for I could not just cause life instantaneously; that was God’s realm alone. However, the only life force available was my own.

I frowned deeper, and looked down at my hands. The first though that raced through my mind was blood, but I immediately threw that possibility out; blood was a potent source of life, spoken of as such in every religion in the world, but that was a source meant for one being, and one being alone; it couldn’t be shared, not unless one dove into the practices of sorcery. That, I certainly would never do.

My answer came moments later, from the words of B’resheet, or Genesis for those who don’t speak Hebrew: “ _And he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living being.”_

Breath; breath was life, it was life that could be shared in more ways than one. I had saved the lives of Hiccup and Toothless once before, using the breath of a dragon with incredible healing abilities; this would not be much different. I closed my eyes and steadied myself, remembering what the effect had been once, before morphing once more into the shape of a Wind Fury and gathering my strength, breathing out and releasing a small, thin strand of that odd, phosphorescent “flame” I had only ever used once.

It was at this point that it occurred to me what the Wind Fury’s flame was; not a flame at all, but a tangible thread of life. I often had said Hiccup, Toothless and I looked at each other as brothers; perhaps the reality was closer to that than we’d thought before. It was this thread I once again began pouring the energy I had gathered before into, morphing back human as I did so.

Because I had let that energy dissipate, the process once again took several hours, and it was nearly midnight before I felt I had gathered around me the resources I needed to try again. I spread my arms, and the glowing, ethereal sphere that had coalesced in front of me followed them, splitting apart and flowing outward. A small stream flowed outward toward each of the barely-visible figures around me in the cove, taking with it the last opportunity I had for this to work.

I halted the strands just above the foreheads of each of the figures, taking a breath as I prepared myself for what could happen next. If nothing, then nothing would happen, and it would be another failed experiment. If it worked…then I would be gaining some very unique new relatives in a manner of speaking, and my life would turn on its head once more. I took another breath, and drove home this last attempt.

A powerful flash erupted from several directions at once around me, and I felt suddenly as if every cell in my body was suddenly being both electrified and drained at once. It burned, with a ferocity I had never felt before, and my mind went haywire; had it gone wrong again? Was this a punishment for something I shouldn’t have tried?

After only a couple seconds, though it felt like hours, the feeling faded, but with it faded also every ounce of energy that had been left in me. I glanced around as the edges of my vision blurred, spotting the former sculptures and toys no longer held in their rigid postures, but splayed pathetically across the ground.

I soon joined them, my legs collapsing under me as my lack of energy brought me to the ground. As my eyes slipped closed, I swore through my swimming vision, though, that the tail of the Nadder nearby twitched before I finally blacked out.


	4. A New Leaf

_Imagine with me_

_Your first breath_

_Your first sight_

_Your first thought_

_Long ago_

_Taken for granted_

_Yet beginning something wonderful_

She was alive.

That was the very first thing that crossed through her mind, the fact that she was lying there, breathing. It felt rather redundant to point out such an obvious fact, but she was also fairly certain, just as oddly, that her life had not existed for very long before this point.

And yet, there was knowledge she possessed that certainly could not have been simply automatic or instinctual; how she was processing these thoughts now running through her mind, for one. That, she was certain was a clue that her existence did not come about like most, and this baffled her all the more.

The dragon slowly opened her eyes, pupils that had never seen light wincing and contracting as they were exposed to this new yet natural sensation, and she glanced slowly around, gathering in the sight.

She was lying in what could almost have been described as a half-cavern, bare sand underneath her with a small pond shimmering slightly almost right in front of her. Lying on the sand and very sparse grasses nearby, she could also see the others too, starting to stir and stretch, waking…

Others?

Yet another odd thought that presently made no sense, but the dragon felt certain that somehow the other dragons and animals she spotted were not only important to her, but that she knew them, and they knew her.

Then, turning her head as she lifted it slowly off the sand, she spotted one last thing that sent her mind into asking a whole new flurry of questions: a young man, passed out on his back and unmoving, that she also felt a powerful connection to. He had answers, the key to figuring out who they were and what they were doing here, but unfortunately it was quite apparent that they would have to wait some time before any of them received those needed answers as well. He wouldn’t be waking up any time soon.

Carefully the dragon moved her feet under her and slowly stood up, looking around in more detail as she ignored the ache coming from muscles that had never been used before, despite being in otherwise perfect condition. The other animals were finally waking all the way up as well, and taking in their surroundings. The dinosaur nearby was the first to stand up after her, blinking rather owlishly at the black-hued reptile before him.

<Eh, I-I’m not the only one who gets the feeling that I should know you, right?> he asked almost timidly. She shook her head slowly. <No, I think we are all supposed to know each other,> she confirmed. <Though unfortunately the only person who I think has the answer to that isn’t exactly available for questioning at the moment.> She gestured with her tail down at the human, and the dinosaur nodded in response.

<I see,> he muttered. <Well, then, I assume the only option is to stay here until he awakes then; otherwise,> he glanced out through the crack in the surrounding cliffs, <we don’t know what to expect beyond here. This place certainly looks sheltered enough for now though.>

<I’m betting that would probably be because whoever he is probably brought us here for that particular reason,> a new voice entered in, coming from the brightly hued cat that plodded up to the prone form on the ground. <If we’re here for a reason, this cove would be most optimal for staying out of sight until whatever it is we’re here for is explained and worked through.>

The cat glanced over at the black dragon close by. <In the meantime, it appears at least us three agree it is best to wait. It’s not wise to act further without answers.>

The dinosaur and dragon both nodded in agreement, before looking around again at the other members of their odd little group. They were certainly a motley bunch, but something told them all that they were stuck together, from here on out.

Unfortunately, the “glue” that held them so wasn’t yet ready to give up the answers as to why.

* * *

“Toothless, grab the hammer from the other room, would you? And tell Ember that I may need her assistance very shortly.”

The dragon nodded and plodded out of the workspace to find the tool that Hiccup had requested. Hiccup, meanwhile, went back to painstakingly measuring out lengths of Myscale and leather from the ratios and patterns he’d drawn up, working to perfect the last few additions he was making to his riding suit. Already hooked to the outfit or fitted into the sleeve and pant pockets were several various instruments, covered carefully by sealable Myscale flaps to protect them when flying or in some otherwise stressful situation. All of them were additionally built out of Mysteel or Myscale, and so stayed extremely lightweight, which Hiccup hoped would keep him limber and more aerodynamic, and prevent any of the instruments from being damaged.

In one of his many moments of random inventiveness, Hiccup had also managed to fashion another sword similar to the one he’d seen in the second movie, only thinner and with a sharper, ridged blade that would be truly useful for battle as well as its intended use for intimidation and dragon communication. He’d kept the name that had popped up online in several places for the blade though: Inferno. This was attached to the lower left leg of the outfit, carefully tucked into its own pocket.

Hiccup had also worked on building in a proper set of straps and pouches to hold Framherja and his other swords, along with various things that any good tinker might need on the go (he was still working on how to ensure his mini notebook would keep from getting wet when it rained though; his seals were yet to be made fully watertight). The final touch was in progress at that moment, and while Toothless still grumbled over his rider getting such a harebrained idea, Hiccup still couldn’t pass up the thought of being able to glide, if not actually fly, on his own. At the very least, he had managed to convince the Night Fury to at least let him build his own pair of wings in case they got separated midair again.

Watching the dragons, Hiccup had come to learn a lot about aerodynamics (having access to a world where airplanes were a common thing also helped). As a result, instead of simple flaps attached to the sides of his suit Hiccup had built an entirely different kind of mechanism: a detachable set of true wings, covered with membranes of thin Myscale sheets and supported by jointed rods of stronger Mysteel. Either wing was well over 15 feet when extended fully, more than enough to carry him, and together weighed barely fifteen ounces thanks to just how thin Hiccup had been able to make the membranes and still keep integrity; this made it also incredibly easy to carry around when folded.

The wings, however, did have one major flaw: Hiccup couldn’t quite figure out how to make them flap and move like real wings, and he stood over the bench, staring down at his inventions trying to figure out this issue. He’d managed to build them so that they would completely fold up as well as maintain stability once snapped out, but if he ever fell off Toothless he needed a means by which to unfold them automatically, since he wouldn’t have the luxury of being able to fidget with taking them out and setting them open while falling through the air. The one means he had of reconciling this, he couldn’t quite incorporate yet.

Hiccup’s thoughts were interrupted as Toothless walked in with the hammer in his mouth, and Ember trailing behind him. “Thanks bud,” Hiccup said, taking the hammer gratefully and laying it on the bench nearby, before looking back at the wings with a frown.

“Still having issues?” Ember asked wryly. Hiccup nodded. “Yeah, unfortunately. There’s got to be a way to make this automatic,” he mused, “but I can’t figure it out. And Hawken was no help before he left since he’s a biologist and not a tech engineer.”

“Don’t you still have the power-cell amethysts Aurianna gave you?”

“Yeah, but the problem is that I’m not sure how to incorporate them into the design,” Hiccup groused. “I would assume it should be built onto the housing for the folded wings, and supposedly Aurianna said that once installed the wearer could control them mentally, but she didn’t exactly explain how last time she was here; you recall how Astrid got her distracted before they left again. And, in any case I still need a way to not only connect it to the whole structure, but make sure it won’t move either.”

“Or, you could simply give up on this nutty idea and leave the flying to me,” Toothless muttered, speaking common-tongue for Ember’s benefit. Hiccup groaned. “Ugh, Toothless, we’ve been over this already a hundred times; there are occasions when it may be necessary. Must I remind you of our first encounter with Jezebel?”

Toothless’ eyes narrowed and his ears flattened back. “Didn’t think so,” Hiccup quipped, before turning back to Ember. “Anyway, I’m stuck on this, but if you don’t have any plans to run off and get into a water fight today, I could use your help elsewhere.” He didn’t miss the slight reddening of Ember’s face at the remark (nobody missed her and Astrid returning to the village soaked to the bone the day before, and everyone knew Holly had been involved that day), but didn’t press further, only smiling as he folded up the wings and set them off to the side. Then, he reached down into a drawer below and pulled out what looked like one long pole of Mysteel.

“You recall that project I was working on for Hawken?” Hiccup asked. “The one I mentioned a few weeks ago to you and said no one else should know about?”

Ember nodded. “Yeah, the staff. Why exactly does he need that again?” “Well, he doesn’t _need_ it,” Hiccup admitted, “but much like me, we all know that he’s one of those guys who has a thing for the dramatic flair. And he likes symbolism and stuff like that, so I thought I’d make something that fit that side of him. Besides, both Astrid and I ended up with music players on his birthday, and couldn’t give much in return, so it’s belated as is.” He glanced at the MP3 nearby, which was softly playing in the background.

Hiccup laid the staff on the work bench, grabbing out a couple of design tools. “I’m almost done with it, so I just need your help melding the final outer coating to it.” He gestured to the strips of Myscale already set out, several different colors laid one next to the other. “It took me a while to find the right scales, but I finally did and now I need some dexterous hands that can fuse them to the pole, since I personally can’t melt Myscale.”

“Alright,” Ember agreed, “let’s begin then. No point wasting more time.” She smiled and held up her hands, both of which began to glow like coals.

They worked in silence for a few minutes, strip after strip of the Myscale coat spiraling around the length of the staff and Ember running her hands over them, heating the material so that it fused with the pure metal underneath, before the process was nearly done.

“Okay, now just to finish with the carvings at the tip,” Hiccup mused, grabbing one of the tools on the bench. “If you can just heat up the tip of the detailer we made, the Fury should be easy enough to carve out since I do that all the time, but the meno”-

He was cut off by a loud roar sounding from outside the forge, one that had become very familiar over the past year and signaled the arrival of someone who deserved to be met outside. Hiccup smiled and carefully set down the staff and detailing tool, before walking outside to greet the visitors.

“Hey Mom! Hello Cloudjumper! What brings you down to the forge this fine day?” he queried. The Stormcutter nodded in greeting before bending down to allow his passenger to disembark with greater ease.

“Oh, not too much, “Valka answered, smiling as she dropped to the ground. “Can a mother not visit her son at work on occasion?” the smile turned into a teasing grin, the expression belying her semi-serious tone.

Hiccup chuckled and shook his head. “Eh, I don’t see why not,” he replied. “Though I thought you would have been spending today with Dad. After all, only a few hours it looks like before a storm might sweep in. And, there’s not much happening here, just working on a couple of personal projects today.”

Valka nodded with a knowing smile as she followed her son back into the forge. “Let me guess,” she mused, “you’re still working on your wings?”

Hiccup gave a sheepish smile as he picked them up again. “Well, I was earlier, but I still can’t quite figure out how to attach the power source to the housing.” He looked at her with sudden skepticism. “And don’t tell me you haven’t dreamt of having your own wings too.”

Valka laughed. “Yes, we all know everyone in the village is a little envious of Hawken for that. I certainly am, but I’m also content for now to fly with Cloudjumper.” Glancing around the room, she queried, “And is Toothless’ opinion still the same on that matter?”

“Yes,” the pointed reply came from further on in the forge, bringing Valka to laugh again.

“Anyway,” Hiccup drawled, “actually right now I’m having Ember help me finish this project for Hawken. And please, don’t tell Dad or Gobber about this as you know they’ll spoil it.” They walked over to the bench where Ember was heating up the detailing tool. She glanced up and nodded politely to Valka, who smiled back.

“There’s just a little carving left to do,” Hiccup explained, taking a seat on a stool and picking up the staff again. Valka walked up and looked over his shoulder at the staff. “Very colorful,” she said. “Does it mean something? I know Hawken has explained a lot about symbols and colors but I can never remember it all.”

Hiccup chuckled. “It takes a lot, and I don’t know how he does either. I suspect he carries some sort of cheat-sheet somewhere. Anyway, the staff doesn’t mean much itself, other than a belated birthday present, but it probably would be better to let him explain the colors and stuff. And you know how he is, always one for the dramatic touch.”

“Ah, yes, much like this other young man I know,” Valka teased. Hiccup snorted. “Well, we also know where I get it from.” “Your father, perhaps?” “Very funny. Actually…we know two people I get it from then.”

Valka sat back in another nearby stool to watch for a couple of minutes as Hiccup took the detailer from Ember and proceeded to painstakingly draw in the image of a Night Fury into the black and silvery portion of the staff’s Myscale tip. Eventually, she spoke up again.

“By the way, it’s not terribly urgent but there is one thing I came down here for,” she said. “Your father is wanting to see you at some point this afternoon, something about a responsibility he thought you should be the one to take care of.”

Hiccup groaned and closed his eyes, slumping forward. “If it’s another lesson on how to run a village, I had plenty of those experiences while he was out cold last year,” he muttered. “Well it is, sort of,” Valka admitted, “but I think you’ll find this a little more…personal.”

Hiccup stopped working completely at that utterance, and slowly looked up at his mother. “Did Dad tell you anything more than that?” he asked slowly. “He’s not going to hound me over Astrid again, is he?” He shuddered. “There is a time and place for those kinds of talks, and the middle of the Great Hall at lunch time is _not_ it.”

Valka laughed and leaned back as she shook her head. “Oh calm down Hiccup; no, it’s not about Astrid. Though you two are well past the required age for those kinds of matters too.”

This time Ember got caught up in giggling as well, and only grinned when Hiccup shot her a red-faced glare. “Okay, then,” he said slowly, “what is it about?” “Stoick didn’t want me to say outright,” Valka replied. “He wants to explain it, and apparently has had enough of Gobber beating him to the point. He only wanted me to say that it is a very important occasion.”

Hiccup sighed and set down his tools, and reached over to switch off the music player. “Well, might as well get it over with now then,” he muttered, standing up. “Ember, make sure no one messes with those, will you? And Toothless, come on; we have to go find my dad.”

The dragon nodded as Ember moved to stow away the project pieces, and Hiccup and Toothless both strolled outside, slowing only for the young man to climb into the saddle before they took to the sky.

Stoick was not difficult to find, standing in front of the main storehouse directing the arrangement of supplies. With more cooperative dragons on the island than ever, and a surplus of unique trading and bartering items at their disposal, there was more food and clothing material than ever before, and the storehouses had needed to be almost doubled in harboring capacity. As Toothless landed, he turned for a moment and smiled as he greeted his son and “adopted son.”

“Ah, Hiccup, Toothless! Glad te see ye showing up sooner rather than later this time around!” he said brightly, before turning his head and shouting, “Mulch! Off to the left side, we need te keep the walkways open in there!”

“Yeah, yeah I know,” Hiccup muttered back. “But, Mom said you wanted to see me and I also want it done sooner rather than later, so…” he shrugged. Stoick chuckled and gestured for him to follow as the chief moved over to a less open location for a little privacy.

“I guess that’s the thing, Hiccup,” Stoick began, wringing his hands a little, “what I’m entrusting you te help me with isn’t just something that’s done in a day and walked away from this time.” He shrugged slightly. “I guess you’ve had a little experience with things like that, but this is a matter of great importance, and it involves no small amount of politics too unfortunately this time around. We…we’ve received a proposal from the Bog Burglar tribe, specifically yer close friend from there, that has been enthusiastically accepted. Now, preparations need te be made te finalize things, and they need te start being made now.”

Hiccup stood silent for a moment, processing the new information. “So, wait…does this mean Camicazi is…you didn’t…” he stuttered for a moment, before a growl nearby reminded the pair of Toothless’ presence.

“If you married Hiccup off to Camicazi, Stoick, I swear I’ll throttle you _and_ her,” he hissed, having started to put two and two together himself. Hiccup nodded. “Personally, I share that sentiment,” he agreed.

Stoick’s eyes widened, before he burst out laughing, bending over and slapping his knee as he guffawed, trying to regain control of himself. “Oh, heavens no!” he exclaimed. “I know you two would never forgive me if I made such an arranged marriage as that, te say the least about how Astrid might feel about it!” He shuddered at the thought of the angry shield maiden, before wiggling his eyebrows at Hiccup, causing the young man to blush violently. “Plus, no doubt Hawken would explode over such news too.”

“Okay, so then what is this about?” Hiccup urged, tired of the beating around the bush that was going on. “And quit with the looks too would you please, neither of us are ready to even think about that!”

Stoick sighed, resigning to the fact that his fun was over, and nodded. “All right, I’ll leave ye be. Yes, it is a marriage proposal however. Camicazi finally managed te find someone she likes.”

“Dare I ask who?” Hiccup queried. Stoick shrugged. “I was quite shocked myself when I heard it: she wants to marry Tuffnut Thorston, and he accepted the offer. It’s a little different from how we usually do things, but the Bog Burglars have their customs and…well, there ye go.”

Silence held for a moment as Hiccup and Toothless both stared at Stoick, wide-eyed and mouths open in shock. The dragon recovered first.

“Tuffnut is getting married?!” he screeched. “One of the _twins_ , really?”

Stoick nodded, smirking. “Aye, and actually it’s more than that. Both of the twins plan te get married, since Fishlegs offered a proposal to Ruffnut yesterday as well.”

Hiccup shook his head to try and get rid of the fuzz of disbelief out of his mind, and fumbled for a hold on Toothless’ saddle. “I-I’ll admit I’m feeling a bit faint,” he whispered. “The Twins are getting married. Camicazi is getting married. This…this isn’t some big joke to you, is it? Waiting to spring the ‘just kidding’ line any minute? There’s no way they matched up yet, and if they did how did I not hear them mention it already? They never keep silent about big secrets!”

“Well, they did, and apparently it’s the one time they kept quiet about something,” Stoick replied. “And, since it’s going te be a double wedding, requested also by the twins, I need yer help preparing for it.” He sighed. “Setting the proper place and date -they both agreed on a late summer wedding- getting decorations prepared and legal details out of the way, not te mention everything that goes into the wedding feast, and dealing with new housing is a lot of work, especially when a tribal heir is involved.”

He gave a firm look to Hiccup, who was still looking incredibly lost. “Hiccup, I need te know I can count on you in this. It’s not a small task, especially when it involves such close allies of ours as well.”

Slowly, the young man nodded. “Y-yeah, I can help,” he said quietly. “It’s just…I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. We’re marrying the twins off, and not only that, but Camicazi is the one marrying Tuffnut.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Gee, after all we’ve been thrown into before here I was thinking there was nothing that could possibly surprise me. Leave it to something so normal as a marriage proposal to do it.”

Stoick let out a laugh. “Yes, well, there’re still surprises te be had yet. I’m afraid there are practices of etiquette ye need te help me teach those two so that they’ll be ready for their special days too.”

As if on cue, down near the docks an explosion suddenly erupted, followed by the sound of squawking chickens and a familiar Zippleback fleeing the scene, an even more familiar pair on his necks cackling as they made their escape.

Hiccup’s face fell as Toothless drawled, “Looks like they’re not changing any time sooner either. I take it we get to go wrangle them again?”

“Correct,” Stoick growled, glaring down at the smoke rising from the docks. “With the new trade shipments coming in I have too much to do te deal with those two today. And they better not have ruined anything important this time!”

“The day that happens will be the day that Astrid willingly kisses Snotlout,” Hiccup retorted as he and Toothless took off again, tailing the trio of troublemakers.

* * *

_It stretched around me in every direction as far as I could possibly see: a blackened, desolate landscape, scarred permanently by fire and warfare. The charred ground gave up nothing living; instead, strewn everywhere lay the evidence of death._

_I tread slowly, trying to ignore the crackle of coal and ash beneath my feet and avoid the faceless bodies that lay everywhere, soldiers from every side. This display of morbid mortality was beyond unnecessary; they died for no good purpose. But that knowledge was not the worst the scene offered._

_No, each and every figure lay strewn on the barren ground, covered in evidence of exactly what they had died from: the searing heat of dragon fire, open wounds with perfect edges made by Mysteel weapons, or the trauma and dismemberment caused only by massive explosions: this was the work of my hands._

_“Pathetic soul; there is no end to be found of this you know.”_

_The voice, twisted and gravelly as it was condescending and leering, emanated from everywhere, and yet also nowhere. I continued wandering, trying to block out the taunt as best I could, but it still followed me as I slowly headed toward another feature in this otherwise featureless place: a group of very different looking figures, infused with bright, familiar colors. I didn’t want to approach, fearing the sight, but I couldn’t stop either; my feet had their own mind, and I could not will myself to fly away._

_“You brought this here,” the voice returned. “You are the only one to blame for all of this; know that their lives are the blood that stains your hands.”_

_The subject of the voice’s prod appeared with perfect clarity as I came closer: these were not faceless figures but all of them familiar people splayed out like all the unidentifiable ones before. Armor of Myscale wrapped their bodies, those who had weapons of their own lay with them just beyond their reach, each with a frozen expression of terror permanently etched across their unseeing eyes. Not inches away, in similar fashion, lay the non-human familiars: a Nadder, Mood Dragon, Night Fury, and others, each and every one crumpled and ashen in appearance._

_I froze, mouth open wide in a silent scream that wanted to but couldn’t escape._

_“You killed them! It’s your fault, you dragged them here!!”_

_The body of Hiccup shifted, rolling so his gaze turned toward me, eyes glazed over like the rest of them as his voice replaced the echoing one from before, terror and betrayal the final expression he would wear. “You did this to us!”_

_Finally I felt my own control return, able to move where I wanted, and I turned to run away from the scene before me. Only, I didn’t get far before something slammed into me and threw me to the ground, hard. I rolled, and looked up to see a flash of-_

_“It’s a nightmare, wake up!!”_

“AAAAHHHHHH!!!”

I screamed aloud, bolting upright and breathing hard, the flickering vestiges of the terrible images only now fading away to be replaced by soft, natural light.

After being through multiple battles of every caliber, no one escapes unscathed, so these nighttime terrors weren’t anymore an extremely rare occurrence. As my mind fully woke up, however, I slowly became acutely aware of one distinct difference from all the other times I had been jolted awake by a nightmare: the dreams were always painful, especially since I almost always woke up alone in my own room, but this time I sensed another presence, someone else nearby. I was not on my own this time, and somehow it was comforting, making it easier for me to forget the dream.

Then, my mind recalled bit by bit where I was, and why I had come here: I had come to the cove in the mountains, with a special purpose.

At this I became fully alert, whipping my head around to face….a pair of violet-edged green eyes looking worriedly out from a face of black scales.

“You okay?” she asked cautiously. “You were having a nightmare.”

I nodded slowly, my still somewhat-fatigued mind starting to properly put the pieces together. There was a Night Fury standing in front of me, a female at that. She was different from the sculpture I had originally brought, details I had never thought about: thinner than Toothless, her scales the same black color but glinting in the faint light with violet iridescence and highlighting the tense, worried posture she had. The only way she could have possibly been standing there was if….

…if my last attempt had actually worked.

For the first time since I woke up from the dream, I turned slowly to look around me in more detail. The Night Fury stood, tensed up, right in front of where I had originally passed out, and behind her I spotted the other characters I’d brought as sculptures or toys with me: the tiger and Macawnivore lay nearby, both with their heads turned in my direction with concerned interest, and off to their right a very large king cobra was coiled next to a Terrible Terror.

Glancing to my other side, I spotted the Nightmare, the same black and red as before but now also highlighted with gold hues along his stripes, a blue and bright orange Nadder, the teal-hued Zippleback, and then just behind the Night Fury stood a teal-green and gold Stenonychosaurus with a bookish look of intellect on his features.

“It worked,” I whispered. “Oh. My. God it worked.” A wide grin began to spread across my face as I turned back toward the first face I had met upon waking, who had taken on a slightly different kind of concerned expression.

“Uhhh, I seem to have missed something,” she said slowly. “What worked? And on top of that, why can we all automatically speak two completely different languages without ever having learned to talk, and why do I feel I know you and everyone else here? None of us have any idea what is going on, or why we’re here, or who we even are, so if you might have any answers to those questions it might help everyone out.”

I blinked. “So….you don’t know who I am, or why you’re all here,” I mused. “Umm….well, that is kind of important, since I am the reason you’re here.”

“We did manage to figure out at least that much,” the dinosaur behind the dragon spoke up slowly. “When we all woke up you were the only one left unconscious right in the midst of everyone else, and we have all agreed that we’re somehow supposed to know each other, but not why.”

I pursed my lips, and nodded, sitting cross-legged. “Okay, so you acquired a basic knowledge, uh, a…a background to build from but nothing about faces or names. Yeah, that does help me understand where I need to begin a little more…”

I shifted into a bit of a more comfortable position to sit, taking a deep breath to fight off what little fatigue was still clinging to me. “Alright, let’s start at the very bottom: I helped bring you all to life. Well, at least sort of; I was the catalyst.”

Eyes widened at this. “You…brought us to life?” the Night Fury asked. “How does that work? There are holes in what I know but the process of life is one of the things not generally missing.” “Long story,” I placated, “and it probably would be better to get into that more in depth later.” Glancing around, I noted all their eyes fixed quite rigidly on me. “For now, basically I took part of my own life to bring you around, and because of that you could be….uh, considered siblings in a manner of speaking to each other, and sort of to me. That’s probably why you feel connected, because you are, directly. So, welcome to part of your new family.”

I smiled, glancing around again as they looked between each other, various expressions showing. “Anyway, we’ve got a lot to cover before I take you guys to our actual home to meet everyone, so let’s get talking. Firstly, names are probably of utmost importance here, and I correct on this?” Everyone nodded simultaneously. “That’s what I thought. First off, I am Hawken, you all are part of the Carlton family now. Most of you, I still need to work on some decent first names for, but I’ve got a couple I already know.”

I looked toward the dinosaur and smiled wider. “My inspiration for you already had a name in place, Zipeau. And you,” I turned to the Night Fury, noting once more the distinct violet rims of her eyes, “I think I have the perfect name in mind already….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found the idea of Camicazi and Tuffnut together to be hilariously fitting....and seems like in the end Ruff and Fish really do end up together as well, so called that.  
> And here, our first real meeting of the Descendants. If you want images of them, find my penname on DeviantArt and at least a few of their sketches are on there.


	5. Shockwave

_“Hawken’s done a lot of strange things since I first met him. Kind of goes with the territory, I guess, what with him not being like any other person on the planet either, but this took the cake. I expected a new discovery, some sort of contraption perhaps (okay, maybe not, since inventing’s really my thing), but that’s not what he flew in with. None of us were quite prepared for what he showed up with instead.”_

_~Hiccup_

“I’m kind of getting concerned now; I mean, he’s been gone for a full three days already. The sun goes down tonight and it’ll start on four.”

Hiccup glanced out the back window of the forge near him toward the mountains beyond the village, and sighed, before turning around and continuing his monologue of worry. “You think he finally went overboard this time around?”

“Eh, ye know him,” Gobber replied, reaching over to the wall next to him and switching prosthetics before focusing back on bending the glowing-red Mysteel sheet in front of him. “He’ll show up with some sort o’ big surprise only after makin’ sure that we’re all wired up over him first.” He frowned at the metal, before gesturing to Hiccup. “Hey, hand me that moldin’ tool that ye’ve been hogging fer so long over there,” he ordered.

Hiccup snorted and handed his partner the tool Gobber was asking for (they’d been working together for so long now that Gobber no longer thought it fair, or funny, to label Hiccup his “apprentice” any more) before glancing out the window again. “I haven’t been hogging it Gobber, you just haven’t asked for it. Anyway, if Hawken waits any longer to show up we all know his father will end up over here in a bad mood, and that’s never great.”

“It’s better than when his mother comes down the warpath,” Gobber retorted. “Or when both o’ them show up. Oh, and that reminds me, did ye take care of that thing the twins got ahold of a couple days ago?”

Hiccup nodded and reached down, fishing through one of his pockets before pulling out a rounded, obsidian-colored stone. When he’d finally managed to get hold of the twins and pried it from their hands, Hiccup had recognized it immediately: the dark color, the expert cut, and the way it seemed to drag light out of its surroundings like Shadow Dragon fire did; the enhancer was the only stone he knew of that looked like that. He had assumed it was lost to the ocean when they fought Drago; go figure Ruff and Tuff would be the ones to stumble upon it.

“I’m holding on to it personally until Hawken returns,” Hiccup explained as he held the jewel up. “The last thing we need is for someone else to get any ideas with this thing, and Hawken’s the only one other than Astrid I would trust to keep it safely.”

“Not even yer father?” Gobber asked almost sincerely. Hiccup shook his head. “He’s managed to lose track of the twins themselves.” “Good point,” the smith agreed, before turning to glare at the metal he was trying to work on. “Mind calling yer reptile in here te melt this again?” he asked. “George’s fire ain’t hot enough, an’ Ember’s disappeared with Orhaganuz again te who knows where.”

Hiccup smirked. “Yeah, she’s probably off racing Spitfire through the spires again. I’ll go see if I can’t drag Toothless in for a bit.”

He sauntered outside, looking up and smiling at the rays of sun that had finally started breaking through the thick clouds that had been gathered over the island all morning, before turning his head and spotting the Night Fury he was after. Toothless, for his part, was lounging belly up and taking full advantage of the warmth finally reaching the ground.

“How dignified,” Hiccup remarked. “Hey Toothless, sorry to interrupt your busy day of lazing around, but Gobber needs your help real quick.”

There was no verbal response, but Hiccup watched as the corners of Toothless’ mouth turned downward. He crossed his arms, tapping one foot. “Come on, he just needs the Mysteel to be heated up, and then you can go back to your all-important job of doing nothing, okay?”

Still no response. Hiccup scowled and marched over to his companion and bent down, glaring at him before muttering in warning, “Fine, don’t get up. I’ll make sure Barfbelch and Fireworm get the choice cod from today’s catch and we’ll leave you the skinny ones.”

Immediately Toothless’ eyes snapped open, and he turned his head to glare at Hiccup. <Come on, can’t you find someone else to bother? I don’t get opportunities like this very often.>

“Not this time,” Hiccup shot back, “and I get said opportunities even less, often in no small part thanks to you. I can’t melt Mysteel, Hawken’s still gone, Ember’s MIA at the moment, and recently you’ve barely been pulling your weight in the forge anyway. Move it.”

Muttering under his breath, Toothless rolled over reluctantly and got up, stomping into the forge. Hiccup caught something in his rant about other villagers and their weight, and decided not to acknowledge it.

A squawk from above drew his expression to smiling again and he glanced upward to see Thorn gliding by, her rider dismounting on the fly and somersaulting before sticking her landing next to the young smith.

“Afternoon m’lady,” Hiccup greeted, walking over and pulling Astrid into a hug. “I thought you were out training again.”

Astrid laughed and shook her head as they stepped apart, turning toward the forge. “No, not today,” she said. “Holly had some event holding her back at home today, and Ember…well, she’s off somewhere with Orha and Spitfire again.”

“I knew it,” Hiccup muttered, causing both of them to chuckle.

“Anyway,” Astrid continued, “I was helping my mother re-dress the minor injuries sustained by the explosion a couple of days ago, but now I’ve got nothing to do. So, I thought I’d stop by here and annoy you for a while.”

“Of course you would,” Hiccup quipped, before glancing around. “Eh, there’s not much going on really, just getting Toothless to actually help every now and then,” he drawled. Astrid snickered as they walked in, spotting Toothless heating up Gobber’s Mysteel sheet with an expression of great reluctance. “Oh come on,” she teased, “It can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, all the dragons are behaving currently so it’s not like he has anything else to do right now.”

Toothless shot her a deadpan glare over his shoulder. “It’s bad enough when you’re enjoying a moment of relaxation and a certain someone threatens you with the loss of your dinner if you don’t end said relaxation,” he growled.

“You live in a village of Vikings Toothless, get used to it. And I still don’t think it can be that bad.”

“You’re not the one being used as a living smelter.”

The banter continued for another several minutes before Hiccup was drawn to a new project to work on from one of the villagers dropping by with a request. That didn’t dissuade Astrid from hanging around though, looking over Hiccup’s shoulder as he went to work on the requested saddle modification.

“So, have you heard anything from Camicazi recently?” she queried. “I’d hate to think the next time we get to see her is actually at the wedding.”

Hiccup shrugged, pulling hard on a strap. “Oh, I’m sure she’ll show up a few times before then,” he replied. “She’s never gone for more than a couple weeks, and she _never_ misses the Independence Day thing they have back at Hawken’s town.”

Astrid chuckled, sitting opposite Hiccup and helping him balance the saddle again as it slipped. “Oh, true. Anyway, still trying to wrap my head around it: Cami is marrying Tuffnut; who’d have thought?”

“I’m still trying to figure out how letting those two get hitched could possibly be a good thing,” Hiccup replied, bending down to pick up a modified wrench he’d dropped earlier, tightening a couple of bolts. “One can hope that a domestic life might help calm them down, but with a reckless twin and an over-energized heir with a mischievous streak the size of Snotlout’s ego we might just be setting things up.”

Astrid stood up and came around to drape her head over Hiccup’s shoulder, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Well,” she reassured, “then at least Ruffnut might calm down. Her and Fishlegs together should balance things out.”

“True,” Hiccup agreed. “Hey, hand me that crimping bar there.”

Astrid turned and grabbed the tool off the desk, handing it to Hiccup who took it and started working on flattening down some rough edges, grunting at the effort. Once that was done, he stood back for a moment and gave Astrid a concerned look.

“In all honesty,” he began, “I don’t really mind the whole wedding planning thing going on. It gives the village something to focus on other than quarrelling with each other. But, I know as soon as it’s over, all the attention will start turning back to…uh…” he gestured slightly between the two of them.

Astrid’s expression fell somewhat, and she tried to hide the faint blush spreading over her face. “Yeah, that. I…I know we’re more than old enough, and…well, everyone knows that we, uh…well, our relationship isn’t a secret, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to jump that far just yet.” She looked at Hiccup in askance, and felt a bit of relief when he nodded in agreement before she continued. “Now, personally that doesn’t mean I don’t hope that we can advance to that point someday,” she said, grinning. The grin turned to a cackle when Hiccup went bright red, and started stuttering.

He was saved from actually having to continue the conversation by a loud roar announcing a dragon landing outside. The characteristic voice of a Shadowracer let both Hiccup and Astrid know who it signaled, and they along with Toothless ventured outside again to see Ember and Orha landing in the plaza, followed by the camouflaged form of Spitfire.

“About time you three showed up,” Toothless quipped, tail lashing. “I’ve been dragged into smelting duty.”

“Oh? About time you were a decent help in the forge again,” Ember retorted.

“Told you,” Astrid teased, nudging the Night Fury. Ember chuckled before slipping off Orha’s back, the dark dragon wandering off with his other companion a short distance.

“Anyway, yeah, sorry about being out so long,” Ember apologized. “Unlike Hawken, most of us don’t have portable devices to keep track of time.”

“Speak for yourself,” Hiccup said, holding up his arm and showing the watch he’d attached to his outfit.

“Oh?” Ember mused. “And who bought it for you?”

Hiccup frowned in reply. “….Fine, fine, you win this time,” he muttered. Ember nodded in satisfaction. “Thanks for admitting defeat this time,” she said jokingly. “But in other news, I spotted some odd activity up in the mountains earlier, and thought I should come back to notify you guys. I think Hawken might be returning soon, finally.”

“About time, he’s been absent for days,” Astrid quipped. “Was he headed back this way?” “Not as far as I could tell, but I hadn’t seen any signs of him before either,” Ember replied. “But if it was him, he’s no longer alone, and whoever’s with him isn’t any of the Terrors by the portal either.”

“Uh, guys,” Toothless spoke up, “I think he is on his way.” They all glanced at him, and he nodded off to the west. “And Ember’s right: he’s not alone.”

The group followed his gaze, and immediately the shape of a Typhoomerang could be picked out clearly even with the distance between them. With the rarity of that species, it was unlikely that the dragon was just a passing migrant, especially as it drew nearer and Toothless’ observation became clear to the others: there were other dragons flying with it.

Hiccup turned and called out, “Hey Spitfire? Can you see if you can find my mom and dad? Bring them down to the plaza, would you?”

The Changewing perked his head up and nodded. <Sure thing. I’ll be right back!> he said, and took off, disappearing (literally) into the village.

The rest of them simply stood in the open plaza watching the apparent flock of dragons slowly approaching. Hiccup could recognize some of the dragons, including a Nightmare, Zippleback, and a Nadder, but there was one figure flying pointedly behind the Typhoomerang that he couldn’t quite make out.

As they got closer however, right at about the same time Spitfire returned with Thornado, Cloudjumper and their riders in tow, Hiccup’s attention was drawn away from the dragons as the Typhoomerang turned to say something to what were apparently passengers on his back, and the shapes of at least a couple of them became undeniable.

Ember broke the silence first. “Is that….is that a tiger on his back?!”

* * *

The village spread out in front of me, and I could see clearly that I had been spotted. Or, I should say _we_ had been spotted: Hiccup, Astrid and Ember were standing in front of the forge in the plaza with their dragons, and not much later Stoick and Valka showed up behind Spitfire as well. No doubt when I landed, the crowd would end up much larger as I attracted the majority of the village with the new companions beside me.

I turned to my passengers then, smiling. <Alright, remember that you guys are going to be a really big surprise to the village here, so be polite, don’t get over-excited, and please, let’s keep the introductions in the order I mentioned earlier. You all remember how we’ll go about this?> They all nodded. <Great. Now, let’s meet the Hooligans.>

We banked downward and came in low, landing carefully with our backs toward the sea and facing the village proper. I glanced around to make sure everyone had landed safely, and that none of my passengers had fallen off, and nodded in satisfaction before facing the small crowd before us.

“Hawken,” Hiccup spoke up slowly, “that is you, right?”

I nodded, chuckling. “What, you were expecting some other Typhoomerang to show up today?”

He shook his head in slight embarrassment. “No, no, it’s just….okay, tell me if we’re all suddenly hallucinating, but I see a tiger, what I assume is a dinosaur, and a multi-colored big cat sitting on your back, and you showed up with a bunch of new dragons I’ve never met before.”

I grinned. “Yes, I assure you you’re not hallucinating. Hiccup, Astrid, everyone else, I would like you to meet my new extended family, the result of my successful project over the past few days.”

There was a moment of shocked silence. “F-family?” Ember queried slowly. I nodded. “Yep. Hard to explain, but part of my own life was used to let them live, so technically they have a direct relation to me. It’s not something that can be described in one go really, but…well, there you go.”

I turned and knelt forward so that my passengers could disembark, each of them climbing off and glancing around. “Anyway, I should actually introduce everyone,” I continued, nodding first to the tiger, the cobra coiling at his side, and the dinosaur Hiccup had pointed out. “Meet Sasha Vitaly, Kingsley, and the Stenonychosaurus there is Zipeau.” They each nodded in turn, and Hiccup and company waved weakly. Then I gestured the other cat forward.

“This is Feren Nova, and he’s what they call a Macawnivore,” I explained. “Hiccup, I know at least you have seen the movie I got the idea from.”

Hiccup looked between me and Feren, before it clicked. “Oh, yeah, I remember now. But, uh…I thought they called him Chunky?”

“Which is exactly why my name was changed,” Feren retorted, drawing startled looks from everyone again. “I most definitely don’t want to be referred to as fat.”

“He…he talks,” Valka said quietly, before she blinked. “I-I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that at this point, but he’s talking.”

“They all do,” I said. “There seem to be a couple of things they automatically picked up from me in the process, and that’s one of them: they all understand both English and Dragonese, and speak it fluently. Anyway,” I looked to the dragons also gathered around me, “continuing with the introductions: the Terrible Terror there on Feren’s shoulder is Teshra, the Nightmare here is Embron, and of course over here this is Nara the Deadly Nadder and Twintail the Zippleback to my left.”

They each nodded politely, and Twintail stepped forward a bit as he glanced around. “It-it might take some time to learn everyone’s name,” he apologized, watching as more of the village crowded in around the edges and drawing a couple of chuckles from a few.

“Well, I…I hope that we can all get along together, since this isn’t the first time the village has gained new members,” Hiccup noted, struggling for words. “At the very least I guess you can’t get any worse than the twins or Snotlout.” More chuckles rose up as Snotlout protested from somewhere in the background. Hiccup glanced at me again though, looking puzzled. “But, uh, I could have sworn there was another dragon in this new party of yours here,” he said. “That’s kind of hard to lose track of. This is a lot of new faces to learn, but I can still count.”

My smile grew wider as I nodded, lifting myself upright and beginning to morph human again. “Yes, one last member of our new team to introduce,” I admitted, keeping my wings flared out to hide the surprise. “Everyone, Hiccup and Toothless especially, I am very pleased to introduce you to Achlema Halailah, or Amethyst Night Carlton.”

In a dramatic flourish I dropped my wings and stepped aside, revealing the last new addition. Amethyst snorted at my theatrical introduction and began rolling her eyes, before she noticed the effect she’d had on our audience.

The plaza had gone dead silent, a couple of tools in the hands of the Vikings making the only sound as they dropped to the ground, every jaw slack and eyes wide as saucers. Gobber, who’d finally just exited the forge to see what all the hubbub was about, had stalled halfway through the door with his hand midair in a comical pose.

However, as I had expected the biggest reactions had come from Hiccup and Toothless. Hiccup had gone weak and was leaning against Astrid for support to keep himself from falling over in his shock, and Toothless…

After a few moments of almost being able to watch Toothless’ mind spin, the dragon’s mouth morphed into a giddy looking smile and his eyes rolled back as he fainted, slumping to the ground out cold.

“Gee, now I realize why you wanted me to go last,” Amethyst muttered, looking wide-eyed herself at the stares she was receiving, as well as the second, now-unconscious Night Fury nearby. “Why all the shock? They accepted everyone else readily enough!”

Stoick managed to pull out of his stupor first, and shuffled uncertainly forward as he wrung his hands together. “We…we were told that Toothless was the last Night Fury alive,” he explained tentatively. “We didn’t think it possible there could be a second.”

“Well, he was the last then until a couple days ago,” Amethyst replied softly, now looking somewhat more sympathetically at Toothless. “No wonder he reacted the way he did then, my apologies.”

“No, you don’t have to apologize, it-it’s fine,” Hiccup stammered, breaking himself and a few of the others around him out of their trance as he stumbled over to try and wake his reptilian brother. “It’s a big surprise, but he’ll come around soon. I mean, this…this should be something we should celebrate. New friends and family, and a second Night Fury!”

The word “celebrate” caught everyone’s attention, and Vikings being Vikings, shouts went up immediately to head for the Great Hall. Amethyst glanced back at me, bewildered. “Are we really that big a deal?”

Astrid chuckled as she walked over to us, trying to hide her own excitement at the prospect. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “New family should always be something to celebrate!” I nodded alongside her. “And, I think it’s a perfect way to introduce you guys to the habits of the Viking half of your new home. Hiccup?”

Hiccup glanced up at me, one hand on Toothless’ snout. “Once you wake Toothless, we’ll all head up together for a short party,” I suggested.

Hiccup grinned and nodded eagerly, all the more motivated as he renewed his attempts to revive Toothless from the dragon’s impromptu nap.


	6. New Beginnings

_It starts so small_

_A touch, a change of pace_

_It moves, and sweeps you right along_

_Around the bend beyond_

_Where wonder waits_

Toothless glanced around the hall, feeling at once half-excited and half-overwhelmed. By now he was sure he’d lost count the number of times either Hiccup or Hawken had done something to change his life around completely, but despite this he was certain this newest event took the cake.

The dragons, or most of them at least, and perhaps the dinosaur (Zipeau, they said his name was?) were easy enough to get used to, being not much different from him and the other dragons that could talk and had human companions. The big cats and the cobra that had shown up at the same time though, they would take some getting used to.

Toothless snorted upon thinking about the snake. Being the reptile person he was Hawken had never lost the chance to educate the rest of his friends all about the many various snakes he knew about (everyone wasn’t surprised a snake happened to be among the new arrivals because of this), and Toothless was one of many that now knew at the very least just how lethal a king cobra could be, let alone one that was the length of a bus, and how revered they were in their own home. Yet despite that reputation, Kingsley himself had quickly turned out to be a rather shy, almost bashful character. It was an interesting situation to watch: an animal that could send most people running for the hills, yet he could barely manage to hold a conversation with anyone outside his new family. Toothless had already decided that he, personally, would help Kingsley work on that.

One dragon in particular though, was a completely different story for him: Amethyst had quickly thrown Toothless for a loop, and he didn’t even know where to begin. Nearly a year had gone by since one of his worst fears had been confirmed: that he had been the last of his kind.

Granted, Toothless certainly didn’t have any issue with living out the rest of his life just with Hiccup and Hawken and company; both of them had become as brothers to the Night Fury in his mind. They would have also readily been put before any sort of relationship, friend or otherwise, with another Night Fury had they existed, but the overhanging knowledge that he’d never have the chance to be with his own kind had still managed to keep Toothless in the darker corners of his thoughts for many nights.

Amethyst changed all that in one sweep. Toothless watched her from off to the side as she wandered through the boisterous hall, somewhat mingling with the villagers and trying to figure out what to do with herself, and Toothless couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight; just like Hawken, she was awkward with large crowds of people she didn’t know, and now he had two characters to tease over their social introversions.

Amethyst wasn’t going to be a nomad, tied as she was to Hawken, so if they became friends Toothless was relieved to know that he wouldn’t be pulled between her and Hiccup. Though he would never admit it out loud (at least, certainly not yet), Toothless realized he already had taken to liking her, and that brought up a whole new issue for him. He had absolutely no idea how to approach her even for a friendly conversation, for fear he’d stumble over and make a fool out of himself. And he didn’t _dare_ ask his human brothers for advice on the matter; they would never ever let him live it down.

<Well, you look rather lost,> a newly familiar voice spoke up next to him. Toothless yelped in surprise and spun to face Amethyst, only now realizing he’d gotten so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he’d lost track of where the female was; there lay another similarity between her and Hawken, both of them could hide in plain sight without even trying.

Immediately Toothless’ mind went blank and he felt his face heat up, thankful for only a moment that his dark scales made blushing nearly impossible. <Oh! Uh, hi. No, no, I was just….uh, thinking,> he stammered, mentally hitting himself for it in the process.

Amethyst only chuckled. <Oh yeah, I see you and Hiccup are a lot alike. You both get distracted by yourselves; it’s almost cute.>

Toothless’ mouth opened and closed like the fish he usually had for dinner as Amethyst smirked at his panic. Finally, she shook her head and grinned even wider. <Oh yeah, I can tell already you’ll be fun to tease,> she mused.

This finally brought Toothless back into his own head, and he scowled at the remark. <Great, you really are just like Hawken,> he growled, earning another chuckle from the female. <What can I say? We’re related after all,> she dismissed, humming as she glanced around for a moment.

<Yeah, and you’re both incredibly awkward with crowds too,> Toothless prodded back, earning a scowl from Amethyst as well. She quickly shook it off however, and her expression turned more serious as she lowered her voice.

<I’ve been meaning to ask though,> she began, <and I really, truly apologize if this is a sore topic for you by the way, but are we….are we really the only two Night Furies alive now?>

Toothless sighed and nodded. <It’s true,> he admitted. <We faced a sorceress several times last year, and she claimed to have hunted the rest to extinction. My own mother was one of the last.>

Amethyst nodded, looking down solemnly. <Then I understand why you reacted the way you did when we showed up; I’m so sorry. When Hawken brought me to life, he brought to life the last chance you had of companionship with your own kind, didn’t he?>

Toothless shrugged. <I…I know it sounds kind of selfish, but I’m glad I’m not alone in this anymore,> he said quietly. <But…I’ll be honest and say I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to do, or where to go from here.>

Amethyst laid down next to Toothless, making him suddenly feel uneasy, yet oddly comforted by the gesture. <Well,> she began, <while I have like twenty years or so of background knowledge, I’ve only actually lived for three days, so we can both figure it out as we go.> She glanced around the hall again. <For now though, I think I’m not really one for big parties. I’ll stick with the few friends I’ve made here.>

This brought out another chuckle from Toothless. <Yep, you are just like Hawken.>

* * *

I watched from the other side of the hall as Amethyst and Toothless finally got acquainted with each other after an hour of the latter clearly avoiding it, and the former unsuccessfully trying to mingle with the crowd. Yep, she took after me a lot apparently, and that told me right off that I had to get someone to nudge her toward Toothless, or they’d never talk to each other. Luckily, Feren had taken the initiative and steered Amethyst toward the male before I had to step in and make things really awkward.

Hiccup sat nearby across the table from me, and as I watched the two Night Furies fumble around with getting a conversation going, he followed my gaze and smiled faintly.

“So, they’re finally talking, huh?” he noted. “Sheesh, never seen Toothless that anti-social before.”

“He just doesn’t know how to deal with girls is all,” I drawled, grinning. “You know, kind of like how his brother used to be?”

Hiccup gave me an odd look, before it finally clicked and the corners of his mouth dropped downward. “Oh, yeah, real mature. Like you’ve never gone through an awkward phase before.”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Liar.”

“Really? Can you prove it?”

“…….No.”

I grinned and leaned back, triumphant, before our attention was taken by Feren walking up to the table semi-casually.

“You might want to keep a bit of an eye on Sasha and Teshra,” he said pointedly, glancing in the direction where the pair was apparently located. “They’re getting into ‘deep’ conversations with your friends Ruffnut and Tuffnut, and from what I hear the previous results of said conversations are not universally pleasant, am I correct?”

The eyes on both Hiccup and I widened before I let out a groan. “Oh, great,” I muttered, looking back at Feren. “Do me a favor and remind them, clearly, what happens if they get in trouble. And feel free to elaborate.”

Feren smiled and nodded, turning to walk away before he glanced down at my feet. “By the way, Kingsley warming up to anyone yet?”

I glanced down as well, looking to where the king cobra had wrapped himself around the table legs and was resting his head on my lap. “Eh, we’re working on it still,” I replied. Feren nodded, and then turned to go keep an eye as requested on what I now worried were our two newest troublemakers.

I focused on Kingsley again, however. “Really Kingsley, you know you’re safe here with us, and you’re allowed to get to know people,” I said. “There’s no reason to be hiding under the table.”

Kingsley looked up to give me a glance that at once was deadpan and skittish. “I-I don’t know anyone,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what I’d even say.”

Hiccup chuckled, earning the snake’s attention. “Gee, not at all what you would expect from a king cobra of all animals,” he mused. “Nothing in its right mind would try to hurt him, yet he won’t even make eye contact with anyone beyond you.”

As if to prove him wrong, Kingsley leveled a glare at Hiccup across the table. “I am right here,” he hissed, hood flaring slightly. Hiccup smiled in reply. “Hey, got you to talk to someone other than Hawken,” he returned. “It’s not so bad to just converse, come on.” He glanced at me again. “Actually, he might get along rather well with Spitfire, considering how the Changewing started out.”

I nodded in agreement. “Not a bad idea. Next time he comes by I’ll introduce them.” I glanced back over to Toothless and Amethyst, the latter of which was lying down next to the former. The scene made me chuckle and I gestured for Hiccup to look, and he started giggling as well. “Heh, looks like at least one of them is warming up,” he said lightly, noting Toothless’ very uncomfortable expression. “I could see those two becoming good friends over the next couple of weeks, but I guess that would require Toothless managing to get over being near a _girl_.”

Indeed, Toothless looked absolutely lost as to what to do, leaning almost imperceptibly away from the female lying right next to him. Amethyst…she just looked like she was enjoying making Toothless antsy. At the very least, there was no doubt she’d fit right in with the rest of us.

The rest of us; that thought suddenly brought my mind back to wondering about home. After the celebration started winding down in hopefully an hour or two, I would be taking the new half of the gang to meet the rest of my family. And it was only then that I realized I had another problem to deal with.

I groaned and slumped forward, forehead against the table. “Uh, Hawken, something wrong?” Hiccup asked. I nodded slightly. “I just realized: there is no way they’re all fitting in my house,” I replied. “And there’s no way I’m just leaving them all in Berk either; your father would not be happy with all these new characters to take care of.”

Tense silence followed as Hiccup pondered my new issue, and clearly was finding no easy answer. Then, Kingsley popped his head up over the table again.

“Would this help out at all?” he asked, coiling on my lap and suddenly….shrinking. Thirty feet of cobra coil suddenly collapsed in on itself, leaving behind only about five feet of much smaller snake, neatly folded with his head looking up expectantly at me.

Naturally, my eyes widened in surprise, as did Hiccup’s. “Uh, when…when did you learn how to do that?” I queried. Kingsley “shrugged” (as much as an animal without shoulders can shrug), and began expanding up to his original size again. “I don’t know, just kind of…came to mind I guess,” he said softly. “Something we got from you maybe?”

“All the dragons you can turn into are very different sizes,” Hiccup mused. “They must have been linked to your capacity to change size as well.” I nodded, glancing around the room at each of our new friends. “I-I guess that kind of solve the problem, doesn’t it?” I said, before smiling. “And, it really opens up a whole new suite of opportunities.”

“Oh, dear,” Hiccup groaned. “I’ve seen that look before, like when you were leaving to create these guys in the first place.” I gave him an innocent smile, before grinning pointedly. “Hey, want to come along when I introduce these guys to everyone back home?”

Hiccup nodded vigorously. “Oh, definitely. I heard about the reactions to your prior surprises; I want to be there to see this one.”

* * *

Three hours later (yes, we definitely left later than I wanted to; I blame Fishlegs and Zipeau for that), Hiccup and I finally managed to slip away from the Great Hall, with Toothless and all of the newcomers behind us. As Hiccup climbed into Toothless’ saddle and I morphed to Night Fury, waiting for those who couldn’t fly to shrink down and climb on (Kingsley had shared his discovery with the rest of the group), Amethyst voiced a concern that had already begun brewing in the back of my mind.

“So…what happens if your family doesn’t want us in the house with them?” she queried, glancing between all of us. “I mean, sure, thanks to Kingsley we know we won’t necessarily take up a lot of space, but it’s still a lot of newcomers to keep track of.”

“I think things will work out okay,” Hiccup reassured, looking over as he finished clipping himself to his saddle. “At the very least, you’ve got two people in the house to vouch for you.” He glanced at me and smiled. “I have no doubt Holly will be thrilled by this prospect.”

I chuckled and nodded. “Well, unfortunately we’re not the two people who have the most say on the matter, but there’s only one way to find out. And Amethyst: it’s our family, not just mine now. Let’s get a move on!”

We took off, and not too long afterward all of us were touching down next to the portal. Everyone stepped off my back and I demorphed, before we all took a deep breath and walked through together into my back yard.

As we headed up toward the deck those who were still full-sized began shrinking down to a more house-manageable size (Teshra would never have to worry about that issue, lucky for her), and I held up a hand for them to wait as I walked up and stuck my head through the open sliding glass door.

Holly was on the living room couch, watching some sort of movie (I didn’t try to identify which one it was this time), my mother was on her laptop at the kitchen table, and I could hear my father downstairs somewhere working on one of his hobbies. Naturally, my mother noticed me first.

“Well, look who finally decided to return!” she said half-jokingly, turning in her chair to face me. “Holly had said you had a project you were working on; was it successful?”

I smiled. “More than you know. Actually, that’s exactly what I was wanting to show you guys. Hey Dad?” I called out. “Can you come upstairs for a moment?”

“Yeah, be there in a second,” came the reply. At this point Holly had figured out something big was going on, and as I stepped inside to let Toothless and Hiccup come in (earning another strange look from my mother), she paused her movie and came into the kitchen, several questions written on her face as she glanced between us.

“So, why are they here?” she asked, pointing to the Berkian pair. “What, friends can’t stop by on occasion?” Hiccup protested, earning a deadpan look from Holly; she knew better.

“They’re here because they wanted to see the reaction,” I explained.

“Oh, so your project was a big one, huh?” Holly asked.

“You could say that, yeah.”

“Big enough to cause a party in the Great Hall,” Toothless mused, ignoring my glare; I hoped he wouldn’t give anything away.

My father finally showed himself on the stairs, coming up to the top and standing just outside the kitchen. “Okay, so I know how this usually goes,” he commented. “What is it that you’ve brought back this time?”

I glanced at Hiccup, and we both grinned. “Well,” I began, “I guess you could say….I’ve just extended the family.”

There was a bout of silence, before a very disturbed expression appeared on my mom’s face. I saw the question coming, and my eyes widened as I waved my hands. “No! No, no no no, that is _not_ what I mean by this,” I hurriedly explained. “It’s….well, I still don’t know how else to word it. Uh….”

I glanced to Hiccup again, who only shrugged uselessly. “Maybe you should just show them instead already,” he suggested. I sighed, and nodded in agreement, before walking over to the sliding door again and poking my head out. “Okay guys,” I announced, “one at a time, and just line up in the kitchen here.”

As I stepped out of the way, the first to enter was Teshra, followed by a miniaturized Embron, Nara, and Twintail. The dogs immediately began barking at the new arrivals, before a couple of quick sniffs silenced them: they smelled like dragons, but also similar to me, which made them okay in their books.

“I…I thought those species were larger,” Holly noted, looking at them with an unreadable expression. “Besides the Terror, I mean.”

I smirked, noting Teshra’s downtrodden expression at that. “Well, they are normally. They’ve just made themselves a size more handle-able within a house.”

“Uh…they shrank?”

“One of the things they got from me,” I confirmed. “They can change size at will.”

“One of the things they got from you,” my father repeated, mulling the thought over in his mind. His eyebrows furrowed, and he looked at me oddly. “And you said they were family, they got it from you….this isn’t making any sense here.”

“Related almost by blood; we came from a part of his own life, I guess you could say, in a really hard-to-explain way,” Nara spoke up, ruffling her wings as she drew wide eyes again.

I nodded. “Yeah, there’s not really a name for the relationship at this point, so…yeah, they’re just kin for now.” I stepped out of the way of the door again, and nodded for Kingsley to slither in, with Sasha and Feren right behind him, bringing my parents to suck in a breath and Holly’s smile grew to the point where I feared she might explode.

The topper though was the last two to step inside: Zipeau carefully stepped through the door, nodding respectfully to my parents, and making Holly squeal (perhaps involuntarily, I couldn’t tell) in excitement, and then Amethyst walked through lastly, making my sister bounce up and down.

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Toothless isn’t the last Night Fury anymore!” she exclaimed, making a fool of herself as we all watched, half amused and half concerned for her sanity. I shook my head and grinned again. “Nope! And the second one you have as a sort of…half-sister, Holly. Everyone, let me properly introduce our extended family: Achlema or Amethyst, Zipeau, Sasha, Feren, Kingsley, Embron, Nara, Twintail and Teshra. They’ll be with us for…well, probably for as long as I’m here at least.”

Nobody spoke (unsurprisingly) for a couple of minutes, though Holly continued to bounce up and down where she stood, and her eyes kept getting wider, as impossible as it seemed. Hiccup and Toothless were trying desperately not to laugh at her expression.

Finally, she half-whispered. “Oh. My. Gosh. I’m related to a Night Fury.”

Naturally, Amethyst’s reaction was to roll her eyes and groan. “Ugh, why is it always me that’s the most shocking one?” she quipped. Giving a half-hearted glare at Holly, she gestured with her tail to Kingsley and Feren. “Does it not shock you as well that you have a cobra, a Stenonychosaurus, and a couple of big cats as semi-brothers?”

That did it, and Hiccup and Toothless finally cracked up as my family got rid of their slack-jawed expressions (Holly’s face didn’t change though) and managed to start thinking about the situation at hand.

“Sorry, I guess,” Holly said bluntly. “It is all rather a big surprise. But…but you can’t deny it’s cool! Come on, I have dragons as relatives now! Okay, I guess I sort of did already, but he’s not always a dragon.”

“He is always a reptile though,” Hiccup teased, before deflating when I didn’t deny it. Holly nodded, and looked at my mother. “Yeah, this is cool,” she said. “Weird. But cool. Right Mom?”

I looked at my mom as well, who only managed to half-shrug, still not quite sure how to react to this. “It’s, uh, not something I ever expected to have to deal with, so…I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “If you’re, uh, all staying here it’s going to take a really long time to get used to.”

“That’s not surprising,” Feren replied, nodding his head in agreement with her. “We were told that it took you a couple of months to get used to Hawken’s first surprise with Hiccup’s world.”

“Well, that one came as a change to their entire lives, right?” Sasha mused. “Surely we can’t be any stranger than a dragon boy.”

“You could be, actually,” my father finally spoke up. “This is at least as much to take in, especially…especially with so many of you in the house. We’re not… ugh, I don’t know how to word this.”

“Well,” Hiccup started to suggest, “how about taking a night just to get to know each other? Maybe have Hawken here actually explain what all happened the past few days. After all, he hasn’t even yet told me what occurred exactly, other than suddenly he has an extended group of odd relatives for which we don’t have a term.” “No odder than you are,” Toothless joked, bringing several of our new friends to laugh.

“I have an idea!” Holly piped up, eyes sparkling. “How about calling them Descendants?”

My eyes narrowed. “Oh no. I know where you got that from Holly, no. Can’t we find something better than that?”

“I don’t know, kind of catchy,” Embron mused, glancing between us. “But we can discuss that later I would think.”

I nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Okay, let’s get down to it and try to sort this explanation out in a decent manner so that everyone can start getting settled in. So, uh, where should I start?”


	7. Inventive

_“Brilliant minds tend to find each other really quickly, and if they don’t immediately disagree with each other then it becomes almost impossible to pull them apart. Hiccup and Hawken had a rough start, but ended up glued together almost as strongly as Hiccup and Toothless were; the new characters were a little awkward, but as their traits popped up they all fell into place really quick, Zipeau in particular fitting in with several people right off the bat. My only concern is that, with how crazy the two nerds were in the forge, let alone with Ember added in, a third might actually see that forge blowing up one of these days.”_

_~Astrid, on the new arrivals_

I took a couple of days away from Berk after I had introduced everyone, partly to check in with the nursery I still worked at on occasion, and mostly to help get everyone settled. Despite my attempts to find a different fitting term, Holly’s suggestion of “Descendants” quickly stuck, and began being used by everyone else.

Naturally, when it came time to figure out where everyone would stay, at least at night, most of the new gang ended up in my room, lounging on the upper bunk of the bed. Amethyst, Sasha, and Kingsley however decided they were going to bed down right with me; at first I was not very comfortable with that idea, what with being used to having a lot of space to myself, but after that first night of all of us peacefully sleeping together, I didn’t have the heart nor the motivation to change the new (and only slightly tighter) arrangement.

Nara, however, ended up in Holly’s room right off the bat. While Holly and Amethyst hit it off pretty well right away as good friends, in no small part thanks to Holly’s fascination with another Night Fury (“just like everyone else,” Amethyst had quipped, but still couldn’t hide the smile she had) and the others could all interact with her well enough, the Nadder and my little sister were…something different.

Like the bond I saw between Astrid and Thorn, or Ember and Orha, I started to see forming here. Holly had found a dragon of her own, and one she could not only ride, but also talk to, fit in her room when needed, and could throw sharp objects, much to my sister’s delight.

Zipeau, though, came to surprise all of us very early on too. From the movies the original model had featured in, I had strong suspicions that he would end up being a bookworm, and to no small extent he was. The long, almost philosophical discussions he would come to have with Hiccup and Fishlegs would end up being proof of that, along with his insistence on increasing the size of my already voluminous book collection.

However, in the morning after we’d all arrived home, Zipeau had also taken an extreme interest in my father’s automotive, weapon-related, and other mechanical projects, and within an hour of waking up he’d proven himself extremely good with his hands and having a strong handle on technical ideas (a couple hours of examining my greenhouse setups resulted in him designing practical solutions for a couple of issues I had been battling for months, and he immediately implemented them without pause). At that point, we all realized that if we happened to lose track of the Stenonychosaurus at some point, look no further than my father’s basement workshop, or the forge.

Finally things started to settle down again, and being the nerd I was I immediately turned around to the experiment I had been working on prior to my side escapade in the hidden cove.

I had once helped to create a special weapon set for Ember, lethal arrows equipped with a very special toxin: Piffleworm venom. After our fight with Jezebel had ended I had turned back to the venom, and though I had never been one for in-depth chemistry, the compound had garnered my attention, having several very unique properties that allowed it to work at the speed it did, in such small amounts.

By attacking neural receptors, Piffleworm venom shuts down the body, and several related enzymes go directly toward blocking signal pathways and even degrading DNA itself. Since I was the only one we knew of at the time that could produce it, there were two good things about it: one, something that dangerous wasn’t going to end up falling into the wrong person’s hands, and two, I could experiment with it all that I wanted to and not run out or get hurt, which came in really handy when I figured out how to tweak the venom’s recognition factor: it reacted with electricity, another dangerous element that I had control of.

Vials and various detail tools were strewn across the kitchen table when Hiccup came by again after a couple of days to find me. He slid open the back door and stepped in, glancing with confused interest at my work, a quizzical expression running across his face as I altered another tube of the venom, electric energy running down the probes I held and causing ripples and flashes of light to erupt from the liquid.

“Uhhh, should I even ask what you’re trying to do now?” he queried.

I smirked. “Working on a new form of pest control is all. You remember what I mentioned about Piffleworm venom?”

Hiccup nodded. “Fishlegs probably remembers more than I do, but yeah, something about electric signals and DNA recognition. You finally figured out how to change it or something?”

I nodded and gestured to a couple of things lying nearby on the table: a piece of leaf with gray mold on it, another that I had discovered a small insect called a thrips on, a plate with algae smeared on it, and a couple of other things, all pulled from one of my greenhouses.

“I matched the recognition to be specific for only the targeted species,” I explained. “It shuts down neural pathways in animals, but in other organisms it still manages to work via cell signaling and stuff like that. Watch.”

I took a small syringe from each vial one at a time, and placed the samples into a small spray bottle. Priming the spray nozzle, I quickly misted each of the undesirables sitting on the table. After a few seconds, everything either visibly died off or stopped moving; the leaves they were on, however, remained untouched.

I held up the bottle, grinning. “And there you have it: I’m about to wipe out every pest in the greenhouses, maybe the gardens outside, and I don’t have to worry about side effects on people, pets, or any of my plants either because it only attacks what it’s been primed to recognize!”

“So, you’ve basically created the perfect pesticide,” Hiccup noted, hiding a smirk at my having just geeked out. I shook my head though. “No, not quite perfect I’m afraid. The venom has to be externally modified, not something I can do on command within the glands, and while I’m a fair bit bigger than a real Piffleworm would be, I can only make a limited amount.” I sighed. “Sadly, while it doesn’t take a whole lot, it will be a very exclusive product.”

Hiccup gave an understanding nod, no stranger to shortcomings, before his eyes brightened. “Oh, anyway, about the reason that I actually came here: for one, I could use your help with the wings again –quit laughing, they’ll work at some point!” he interrupted himself as I started chuckling at the expense of his so-far failed attempts to get the contraption to work. “And two, there’s something kind of special that I wanted to show you.” He smiled mysteriously at this, and my curiosity was piqued, as per usual. I nodded, capping the vials and setting them away so they wouldn’t be easily spilled. “Alright, then let’s go.”

“Would it be an inconvenience if I tagged along?” Zipeau suddenly spoke up, the dinosaur coming up the stairs with Amethyst behind him. “Sorry if it’s a burden, but I was hoping to become more familiar with the village, and the forge especially,” he explained.

I looked to Hiccup, who just gave me a ‘ _why not?’_ look, and I nodded. “It shouldn’t be a problem; after all, the village is kind of the other half of home. But less talking, more doing; out the door everyone!”

Amethyst offered to carry Zipeau, and soon the four of us along with Toothless were in the air and on the way to the forge. As we landed, Gobber poked his head out of the front of the smithy to see who had shown up.

“Oh, so ye finally going te show ‘im Hiccup?” he questioned, grinning as Hiccup shot him a look.

“Bad enough that you happened upon it before I was ready, but could you please not give anything away?” Hiccup pleaded.

“Oh, ye know me,” Gobber replied, waving it off.

“Yes, I do, and that’s why I feel inclined to say it,” Hiccup retorted promptly, drawing chuckles from our companions as Gobber harrumphed and crossed his arms in protest.

“I think he’s got you on that one,” Toothless noted as we walked in, ducking to avoid Gobber’s half-serious swing at him.

Back in Hiccup’s main section of the shop, the two Night Furies sauntered off to one side and Zipeau followed the two of us as we headed for the storage drawers by Hiccup’s desk. Hiccup knelt down and opened one, pulling out the folded contraption he’d been working on for well over two months now. As he set it down on the desk, something else caught his eye.

“Oh, that reminds me,” he began, reaching down into the drawer again and pulling out an oddly familiar looking obsidian stone (I’d never seen it myself, but Hiccup had described it after the battle). “Hawken, think you can keep hold of this safely? The twins managed to find it a day after you left and…well, I’m sure you can piece together the rest.”

I smirked as I took the gem and pocketed it carefully. “So, the twins found the enhancer huh? That explains that big old burn mark where Gunnar’s smokehouse used to be,” I chuckled. “Can’t believe this managed to be sitting around on the island for so long; I would have thought it lost in the ocean.”

“I’d hoped the same thing,” Hiccup agreed, “but that would just make our lives too easy, wouldn’t it?”

That out of the way, he turned and began unfolding the flying contraption, the membranous imitations of wings extending out gracefully from the central Mysteel connector. “So, it’s completely designed,” Hiccup said, reaching into the drawer again and pulling out a special amethyst stone, “but I can’t quite figure out how to mount the power cell to it so that it will work right.” He held up the purplish gem, and inside we could see sparks flitting through the facets, lighting it with energy.

“I may have an idea,” Zipeau spoke up, stepping forward as he eyed the contraption. “Hawken told me earlier that pure Mysteel acts as a natural, almost living electric circuit when power is applied directly. If, um….may I see that for a moment?” He pointed to the stone in Hiccup’s hand. Hiccup nodded and held it out, Zipeau carefully taking the gem and holding it against the metal center of the wings.

“It would need a proper mount to hold it in place,” Zipeau muttered, tracing lines on the device with one digit, “like a sheath to hold the stone, and then…” he traced paths toward the arms of the wings themselves, as if drawing where the power would have to run in order to work them, “…three prongs to each side of the stone, connected to the facets and extending toward the wings to direct power so that they can flex and move naturally.”

I walked over to the pile of excess Mysteel that always sat in the corner of the room, pulling out a short rod. Heating up my hands, I filed it down and cut it into six short, thin pieces, bending each one slightly to fit the profiles of the amethyst. “Something like these?” I asked.

Zipeau nodded, taking them carefully as I held them out (after making sure they weren’t red hot anymore) and laying them out against the stone on the desk before moving to take measurements.

A couple of minutes later, and the dinosaur held up the entire apparatus, presenting it to Hiccup. “Try it on,” he invited, holding out the straps that fit around Hiccup’s flight suit. Hiccup of course immediately took it, sliding his arms through the straps and positioning them into the clips on his outfit, making sure everything was snug and not loose enough to come apart anywhere. An excited smile began to spread over his face, before it halted as a realization hit him.

“Uh, how about we go outside to test this?” he said sheepishly, looking around at all the items in the room that could be all-too-easily knocked over (and considering his background, it would have been the most important object he managed to knock over). We followed him back out in front of the forge, Toothless and Amethyst joining us in either interest or concern, and Hiccup moved to stand in the middle of the open plaza, reaching back and carefully pressing his fingers against the gem through the opening in the housing we’d built over it to activate the power supply inside. Turning away from us, he asked, “Is it on?”

The stone was now visibly glowing rather than giving off intermittent sparks, and pulsing ever so slightly as the energy within circulated. “Yep, it’s on!” I replied. “Now, just make sure you don’t get too excited and try to fly this time around; that’s something you’re going to need practice with.”

“Why? You didn’t need any practice when you first started morphing,” he protested.

I snorted. “Yeah, and I also had the instincts come with the package deal I got. You don’t.”

“Drat.”

Hiccup wasn’t put off by that too much of course, and he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes, focusing. Almost immediately, the Myscale wings came loose from their folded state, spreading from his back and unhinging until they were at their full span. Hiccup had made the Myscale forming them from Toothless’ scales, so they glinted in varying shades of black and midnight gray, matching both his suit and his dragon.

As Hiccup opened his eyes, they widened as they took in the sight of the results of his project, fully functional and working. Another thought ran through his head, and both wings flexed upward on command.

“Oh…my….it-it’s actually working!” he marveled. “Yes! Yes, it works!” He whooped and leapt upward, before running over to Zipeau and hugging the dinosaur, much to the latter’s surprise. “I can’t believe you figured it out just like that!” Hiccup exclaimed again, letting Zipeau go and standing there with a goofy smile on his face.

Zipeau shrugged awkwardly. “It wasn’t too hard, but, well, uh…you’re welcome,” he stuttered, smiling slightly.

Nearby, Toothless groaned, announcing his feelings on the matter. “Great, now he’s finally got something else to hurt himself with,” he griped.

“Oh, don’t be like that, it’s not that bad,” Hiccup shot back. “We discussed this, several times.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like the idea,” the Night Fury quipped in return.

“At least you can outfly him, or hide the wings,” Amethyst said, smirking. “You can still try to keep your brother under control. Mine? Not a chance.”

“Hey!” Hiccup snapped, as I smiled at the ideas I knew were running through our heads. “Don’t start giving him any ideas!”

“Too late!” Toothless said with a laugh. Hiccup shook his head with a sigh, before folding the wings. “Well, look, I’m not going to try and test out flying right now, alright?” He looked at me. “I actually still need to get to the second reason I dragged you here.”

I saw the new, different smile spreading across Toothless’ face at that comment, and once more felt my curiosity rising. Heading quickly into the forge once more with everyone in tow, Hiccup had me stand with my hands out, and eyes closed. “And don’t you dare open them until I say you can,” he warned. I could hear a drawer open, and something crinkly sounding was pulled out; a wrapping of some sort, I assumed.

A few seconds later I heard Amethyst gasp, followed abruptly by Toothless’ “Sshhh!!” and something long, smooth and carefully carved was laid in my hands.

“Now, I know it’s not something really necessary,” Hiccup said, “but I had a little extra time here and there, wasn’t able to get you something by your last birthday, and both of us have that sort of ‘dramatic flair’ that we like to use, and, well…I just also wanted to give you something for all we’ve been through together. Open your eyes.”

I did, and glanced down at the object in my hands. It was a staff, and it epitomized Hiccup’s skill at blacksmithing and craftsmanship. It was just over five feet tall, clearly built of Mysteel and overlain in layers of Myscale. The main shaft spiraled around in smooth bands of blue, violet and scarlet, along with a unique silvery-white shade that separated each of the colored bands.

“Where on earth did you get scales for these colors?” I asked quietly. Hiccup chuckled. “Oh, I have my contacts as well.” I only nodded, my eyes continuing to follow the staff up to the ornate tip: slightly wider than the rest of the shaft, one entire side with parts curving around the nearly blade-like end had been made into a Night Fury carving, raised out of the flush surface and complete with glowing green eyes and scale details, and the opposite side, shadowed by the Fury’s wings, was a golden seven-branched menorah, overlying a spiral pattern that mirrored the mark now situated on my arm.

“How long have you been working on this?” I asked, finally looking up at Hiccup.

He shrugged. “Oh, the gathering of the scales took a couple of months, but the actual building of the staff? Couple of weeks, mostly to get the carvings right.”

“That’s why he’s been fidgety every time ye’ve walked into the forge,” Gobber commented from the other room. “He was afraid ye’d find yer gift before he was actually done with it.”

“Would you be quiet?!” Hiccup snapped, earning only a chuckle from the older smith and an echoing laugh from Toothless.

I shook my head in amusement, a smile stretching across my face. “Well Hiccup, I think I can safely say you’ve outdone yourself this time,” I said. He just waved it off.

“Oh please, no flattery,” he retorted. “It’s your gift, and with the alignment of the Myscale and carvings it should hopefully be really effective at conducting heat and electricity.”

“For more ‘dramatic flair’?”

“Yeah, something like that.” We both started chuckling at that.

The roar of a Thunderdrum sounded outside seconds later, bringing both of us to peek out the front door as Thornado landed, Stoick dismounting and heading for the forge.

Gobber waved his hammer attachment in greeting. “Good day Stoick! What events bring you here today?” he inquired. “In need of some tool te use in yer chiefin’? Some choice elm for yer woodworking?”

Stoick chuckled and shook his head. “No, no, not today. I’m here for my son, actually,” he amended, looking for said young Viking.

Hiccup groaned. “Oh, come on, I just got here!” he complained. “Can’t the wedding details wait for an hour or two?”

“Camicazi is going to be visiting in a couple of days te start finalizing things,” Stoick replied, “so no, it can’t wait.”

Hiccup’s face contorted to one of great discomfort, his eyes squeezing shut as he pinched the bridge of his nose, and when he opened them again he began throwing another retort toward his father before he caught my expression of surprise and confusion that was slowly morphing to one of concern and slight irritation.

“Oh no, I forgot to tell you, didn’t I?” he winced, discomfort growing for a new reason. I arched an eyebrow, and shot a look toward Stoick as well, who also appeared to realize they forgot to clue me in and was looking just as guilty, if not more.

I focused on Hiccup again, and said lowly, “If either of you tell me that you have been married off”-

“No, no, nothing like that!” Hiccup exclaimed, shooting Toothless a glare as the dragon started laughing behind us in the forge. “No, Ruff and Tuff are being married later this summer to Fishlegs and Camicazi, respectively, and my _father_ has stuck me with the oh-so-pleasant job of arranging all of it. The customs of course require a bit of revision with all the things that we’ve learned in the past couple of years and so….”

He trailed off as he watched my expression morph back to shock. “Uh, did-did you get all of that, or do I need to repeat it?” he toned cautiously.

“I think he’s still trying to get past the ‘twins are getting’ married’ part,” Stoick chuckled. I slowly nodded in confirmation of his suspicion. “Yeah, uh, let me process that one first. Wait…did you just say Tuffnut’s marrying _Camicazi_?!”

Oh, the implications of that immediately started flashing through my mind when Hiccup confirmed that news, and very quickly the others with me caught on to my thoughts.

“So, I know who the twins are well enough now,” Zipeau mused, “including all of their infamous tendencies if that celebration a few days ago and the stories I heard were any indication, but you’ve only given a preliminary description of your friend Camicazi.”

I smiled with a slightly mischievous air. “You know Tuffnut’s personality then?”

“Of course, more or less.”

“Cami’s an extremely articulate, coordinated, and highly intelligent version of that.”

“….”

“Yeah.”

“God help us then.”

At that, Toothless started cracking up again, prompting Hiccup to grab a forge apron off the hook nearby and lob it at him in response.


	8. How to Handle a Talking Tiger

_“The twins are infamous throughout the archipelago for their prank-happy tendencies; on the rare occasions she joins in Holly is nearly as infuriating. More, really, since nobody but Hawken or their parents dare to deal with her lest they get on Hawken’s bad side doing it wrong. We had all hoped that the Descendants would be more like their brother than Holly when it came to mischief, and for the most part they are, but there are a couple…yeah, they give even Ruff and Tuff a run for their money on a bad day.”_

_~Hiccup_

Having others sleeping in the same bedroom as you, and especially if they’re sleeping on the same bed, has both its advantages and its disadvantages. On one hand, plenty of early warnings if and when someone unexpectedly opens the door (Holly has her days, thinking it’s fun to scare me awake), and I never got that lonely feeling of lying in bed with complete silence my only companion again. I also had plenty of friends to talk to if we all couldn’t quite fall asleep right away, and a live, miniaturized Night Fury is, in my honest opinion, far better than any plush toy. On the other hand, however…

As the sunlight streamed through my window and I began to drift back into the realm of consciousness, I became slowly more aware of Amethyst lying, as usual, along my side right at the edge of the bed. Kingsley was coiled up on the pillow next to me as he usually was as well.

Up by the pillow as well however, I could sense Sasha sprawled out, despite his usually sleeping closer toward the foot of the mattress. I expected him to be facing me, waiting for my eyes to open so he could pounce with one of his energetic wake-up greetings like he’d been doing occasionally the past week or so (amazingly, out of all of the Descendants, Sasha had turned out the only one to really be a “morning type”), so very, very slowly, I cracked one eye open to face him, bracing for a face full of tiger.

Sasha’s nose was not what greeted me however. Instead, I had a very, very clear view of his back legs and the base of his tail, swept back in an undignified manner. The tiger clearly also had no interest in moving from this disturbing position.

I frowned deeply. “This was not the view I was hoping to wake up to, Sasha,” I muttered warningly. “Mind scooting over at least a little bit, or at least put your tail down?”

Nothing came as a response. “Sasha, I mean it: move.”

This time I did get a response, but it was not a groan or complaint, nor the wanted agreement with my request and his moving out of my view.

No, instead I got a tiger fart directly to the face.

Immediately I was fully awake and abruptly backpedaling, falling out of my bed as I tried to take in fresh air. My sudden exit caused Amethyst to yelp as she attempted to get out of my way before rapidly evacuating the sleeping space herself.

“Oooohhhh my….Sasha that was…eeeecccchhhh!!” I gagged, waving my hand in front of my face as I noted Kingsley also slithering away from the bed and toward the snake tank in the room, the third Sasha had removed from the bed with his attack.

<What on earth did you eat?!> Amethyst screeched, pawing at her nose as she glared in the tiger’s general direction. No words came, only the sounds of heaving laughter, drawing the attention of those on the top bunk, who peered over the sides before scuttling back as the vile air rose upward. After a few seconds the remaining aroma finally began dissipating, and I stepped gingerly back over to the bed, glaring down at the convulsing cat, who was clearly far more entertained by this than he should have been.

“Are you aware that you smell as bad as Toothless after he gets ahold of bad cod?” I queried accusingly, succeeding only in sending Sasha into another fit of laughter. “No, really, that wasn’t funny,” I snapped. “This is my bed you’re wanting to sleep on, and I have every right to remove you, especially after a face-first gassing.”

Sasha just continued to laugh, tears in his eyes as he failed to reply.

“Maybe he should sleep with Holly,” Kingsley suggested. “Who else agrees?”

“Don’t you dare send him in here!” Holly yelled from her room.

“Why, afraid he’ll be worse than you?” Twintail called back, causing Sasha, who had finally started to calm down, to fall back into giggles.

Thus was the start of my day.

* * *

Cami was completely unaware of my presence nearby. Granted, I was completely invisible in my position up against the wall of the house, but it still gave me some level of satisfaction being able to stand there and eavesdrop without any risk of discovery.

She was talking with Hiccup, who happened to be the first person she’d run into upon landing that morning. I crept forward to catch the conversation a little more easily.

“…hasn’t changed much since you were last here,” Hiccup was saying. “He and Ruff blew up Gunnar’s smokehouse about a week and a half ago.”

Cami cracked up. “The smokehouse? Oh, how I wish I’d seen that!” she exclaimed. “But let me get this straight: we’re actually setting up a double wedding? Ruff’s hitched too?”

“Yep, with Fishlegs,” Hiccup confirmed.

“Oh how precious. My soon-to-be sister in law is in the same boat as me. Someone to discuss marital details with, huh?”

“Can’t believe I’m saying this, but discuss things only when she’s drunk. The twins have turned out to actually be more ‘all there’ when they’re inebriated, ironically.”

Cami nodded, before glancing around the plaza. “So I noticed Toothless isn’t following you around like he usually does right now. Got his own village responsibilities finally catching up to him?”

Hiccup chuckled. “Well, yeah, that and…uh, figuring out how to act around some new friends of ours.”

This caught the blonde’s attention completely, the heiress turning to look suspiciously at Hiccup. “New friends? You referring to some new dragons one of you guys dragged in or has somebody moved to Berk that I haven’t met yet?”

Hiccup fidgeted a little, scratching the back of his head. “Well, yes to both questions, but also not quite. Uh, we really should wait for Hawken to explain this, since it’s a bit of a complicated thing to explain and a little bit of a shock at first.”

As if to sum up this point, I spotted Teshra go flying past the other end of the plaza with Sasha in tow. Naturally Camicazi’s eyes followed the pair, widening as she pointed at the tiger. “Did…did you see that?” she exclaimed.

“Like I said, a bit of a shock,” Hiccup drawled, smiling sheepishly. “That was….uh, let me see if I get this right…uh, Sasha and Tessa, I think?”

“It’s Teshra,” I retorted, causing both of them to jump as I finally made my presence known. Dropping the cloak, I demorphed and strolled up to them. “You might want to get used to them Cami; they’ll be here as long as I am.” Turning my head to keep an eye on the rambunctious cat, up until the point he actually left the plaza, I continued. “They’re kind of like semi-siblings, Holly helped coin the term ‘Descendants’ for them. They’re basically blood-related to me.”

Cami snorted in response. “Gee, leave it to you to end up brothers with a tiger,” she quipped. “Is that who Toothless is getting used to? I can understand his struggle.”

“Not the only one,” Hiccup mused, looking around. “No, he’s having more trouble getting used to having Amethyst around, wherever she happens to be. She here with you today?” he asked, looking at me.

I nodded. “Yeah, somewhere, though couldn’t tell you where currently.”

“Okay, so who’s Amethyst?” Cami interrupted, looking disgruntled at being the outsider in this subject that she could clearly tell was important.

A shadow passed overhead, and we all looked up to see the subject of our conversation gliding in for a landing.

“Hawken! I just saw Sasha run by in the direction of the twin’s house,” Amethyst informed as she touched down. “He’s got Teshra in tow, or she’s got him in tow, and they both had….”

She trailed off as she noticed that the short blonde with a long braid next to us was not Astrid. “Oh, uh, hello!” she greeted, nodding in a draconic version of a bow. “Are you Camicazi, by chance?”

Cami was clearly floored, just like everyone else who’d met the female Night Fury, barely nodding in response. “I…yes. I thought Toothless was….”

“The last?” Amethyst finished, knowing where this was going. “Couple weeks ago he still was. I’m Achlema, or Amethyst, by the way.”

Cami slowly began to find her wits again by this point. “So I gathered,” she muttered. “Uh, well, pleased to meet you, I guess.” Glancing at me, she queried, “Alright, where on earth did you find these guys?”

I chuckled. “Long story short, I made them rather than found them. But that’s a tale for when we’re not all busy. You need to go find Tuffnut I think, and prepare for when Bertha and company get here, and Hiccup, Astrid was looking for you earlier.”

I grinned at Hiccup’s paled face; apparently something had happened between those two that I’d missed, but I’d catch up later on that. Instead, I turned to Amethyst and asked slowly, “Now, what were Sasha and Teshra up to this time?

* * *

The tiger glanced out the door of the shed at the field of sheep, his eyes focusing pointedly on the gate.

<Okay, Ruff’s going to distract Sven until we’re in position, and Tuff has the paint bombs ready at the end of the road,> he explained. <You ready?>

The Terror on his shoulder nodded, grinning. She apparently got a little too excited as Sasha winced a moment later. <Hey! Watch the claws will you?>

<Sorry.>

They both peered out again, ignoring the darkening clouds gathering above the island as they waited in anticipation of the coming chaos. A couple of minutes later the female twin appeared, sauntering up to the shepherd watching the flock in the large pen and attempting to engage him in conversation. Once upon a time, Sven would never have been one for talking (some still wished he’d stayed that way), but Ruff got him going, and after a few minutes he followed her further away to the north end of the pen.

Sasha grinned. <Okay, here’s our chance. Unlatch the gate, and we’re open for business!>

The two snuck out the back of the shed and crept over to the gate. Teshra flapped up to the latch and began fiddling with it, her smaller, more dexterous digits quickly untying the knots in the rope and lifting the latch up, releasing the gate.

Sven always kept his pen in perfect condition, so the hinges barely made a sound as the gate swung open. Sasha chuckled, looking up to make sure Ruffnut was still busying the shepherd before crawling along the side of the pen until he was opposite the herd from the opening in the pen. His hide trembled in anticipation of the chase to come (he was still a predator after all), so with one more glance to make sure Sven was fully distracted, he crouched down, took in a deep breath, and let loose.

RRROOOOAAAAARRRR!!!!

The roar of a dragon is intimidating. A Night Fury’s shriek can send grown men diving for cover. Both of those the sheep had managed to grow used to over the years, but the sound of a tiger’s roar is something equally primal and tied to an ingrained fear nearly every creature has of big cats.

A tiger’s roar can make warriors tremble in fear, their knees turn to jelly, and Sasha’s had a much more pronounced effect on the flock: they panicked and bolted. With a wide open gate available to them, they had a lot of room to run too.

At the sight of what he’d done, dozens of fluffy balls of wool stampeding toward the village, Sasha immediately cracked up before giving chase, Teshra in tow and laughing the whole way.

Sven had spun around the second the roar had cut the air, and at the sight of the tiger chasing his sheep out of the pen, he immediately put two and two together and turned to throttle Ruffnut, but the Viking female had taken her chance and run with it, literally, cackling away as she sped off at high speed. Face bright red in fury, the shepherd took off in pursuit.

“Hey Tuff, throw me one!”

Said twin looked up from his bucket of paint bags, and spotted Sasha holding out a paw. With a shrug and a grin, Tuffnut threw one over, the tiger catching it in a semi-morphed paw before standing on his hind legs, taking aim, and nailing the lead sheep, which promptly became washed over in a deep shade of purple.

Sasha grinned, looking down at his paws that looked more like fur-covered hands at that moment. The ability to morph anthropogenically; it was a discovery Sasha had made early on but hadn’t told anyone else yet, hoping to use that fact to his advantage for a while. He couldn’t turn human, only changing enough to have working digits and stand up comfortably, but when it came to painting sheep it was more than enough to do the job.

Tuffnut threw Sasha another bag of paint, and after thoroughly coating another sheep in shades of green they and their partners in crime went racing off through the streets in search of more targets.

It was absolute madness, sheep barreling down the dirt paths as paint bombs flew out of nowhere, occasionally striking not their intended targets but also the various Vikings diving to get out of the way. Sasha laughed as he plowed through the streets, taking up the job of directing the sheep now while Teshra and the twins continued their “extreme artwork.”

As he came around the corner of one of the flour storehouses, the tiger spotted Snotlout facing the away from him, staring at the stream of sheep flowing by and completely oblivious to the cat behind him. Taking his chance and running with it (literally, just as Ruffnut had), Sasha raced up, grin growing ever wider, and leapt over the burly dragon rider, snagging the helmet off his head mid-jump.

“Gonna borrow this for a minute, thanks!” Sasha yelled as he came down. Snotlout reached up too late as the tiger landed and placed the helmet precariously on his own head before turning and bolting.

“Hey! You bring that back!” Snotlout screamed, taking off after the cat, but Sasha was already gone, racing through the streets at a speed Snotlout could never hope to match. “Get back here, or I’ll get your brother!” the Viking threatened, but to no avail. He growled and turned toward the plaza, marching down the path with a mission up until another stampeding sheep ran him over.

“Aahhh! Fireworm, help me!”

A short distance away Teshra hefted another paint bag out of the bucket and lifted off, gliding up and searching for her next target. Before she could release her payload however, she spotted something that immediately set her on alert: a pair of Night Furies and two auburn-haired young men heading their way through the village, none of them looking happy. Stoick and Thornado were not far behind either.

The Terror dropped her bag immediately and turned to find Sasha, snickering when she heard someone yelp as the paint bomb found a new target. The tiger was still racing through the streets, but now wearing someone’s helmet in a ridiculous manner, and Teshra angled down to glide above him.

<So, whose hat did you steal?>

<Snotlout’s. You should have seen his face!>

<Yes, I’m sure it was hilarious,> Teshra chuckled, <but right now we need to find a place to hide.>

The tiger slowed and glanced up. <Why, what happened?>

<Hawken, Amethyst, Toothless, and Hiccup are all on their way over here, with the chief in tow.>

That brought Sasha skidding to a halt. <Oh, okay,> he huffed. <Umm, let’s see….over there?> He turned and ran toward the Ingerman household, dashing past the actual residence and heading to the shed behind. Fishlegs and his father had plenty of scrap wood and paper inside at all times, among various shipbuilding tools, so the troublesome pair squeezed inside and closed the door quietly, climbing underneath a large birch plank in the back.

<Hey, what about Ruff and Tuff?> Teshra whispered. Sasha only shrugged back <They’re used to getting in trouble, so it’ll be nothing new.>

* * *

When the first painted sheep went dashing by, I knew the pair I was searching for would be in for it (I’d heard Sasha roar earlier, which had put me on alert anyway; this was just icing on the cake).

When the next five darted past, all dyed in various new colors (to be caught by the two Night Furies and Thornado behind us), I decided I would publicly humiliate them as punishment.

Then, when Ruff and Tuff spotted us marching toward them and scrambled to run the other way, I knew the entire village would enjoy the show too.

“Ruff! Tuff! Take another step and I’ll throw you down the old well!” I yelled, not hiding the growl in my voice as I took off to glide warningly above the two troublemakers. They knew my threats were always carried out, and that no one would help them until I or Stoick said otherwise (their own dragon included), so they halted. I dropped down and grabbed both of them, turning the pair to see the sheep stampede now coming back our way as Toothless recruited other dragons around the village to help corral the flock.

“You guys are going to help Sven get all of his sheep back in the pen,” I ordered, holding them up high off the ground. “Then, you are going to help him clean the paint off of each and every one, until the last speck is gone. _Then_ , both of you have outhouse duty. Sven’s _and_ Gobber’s.”

Both of them groaned loudly. “But why do we get all the work?” Tuff complained. “It was Sasha’s idea!”

“Stoick’s orders, and you’ll do well not to cross him, hmm?” I growled, nodding my head upward as Thornado soared past with the chief on his back. “And the Descendants will get their very own punishment; I know whose idea it was.”

I dropped them unceremoniously to the ground, and pointed toward the sheep being herded. “Now move,” I snapped. “I have to find the other two troublemakers who helped make this mess.”

Just in time, Barfbelch showed up, and I turned to him, pointing at the twins. “Make sure they do their jobs!” <Yes sir!> the Zippleback agreed, moving to tower over his riders.

I smirked as they headed off, the dragon glowering at the twins condescendingly, and the twins sulking, before my smirk melted back into a frown, and I glanced around the street. “Now, if I were a tiger and a Terror, where would I hide?” I mused, before snorting at the ridiculousness of the question; I didn’t need to think about it. Instead, I morphed Shadow, and moved off to find my quarries.

* * *

<I don’t hear screaming or sheep anymore. What’s going on?>

Sasha didn’t have an answer to Teshra’s question, so he carefully crawled over to the side of the shed and peered out through the cracks, trying not to knock anything over and draw attention to them.

<The sheep are gone,> he whispered. <Maybe they moved to the other side of the village already.>

It had been a number of minutes since the pair had taken refuge in their emergency hideaway, so they were starting to grow restless again. <Should we make a break for the forest?> Sasha inquired.

Teshra shook her head. <No, probably not safe yet. But you have to admit that was worth having to wait in here!>

They both chuckled for a moment, before falling silent again. A few more minutes passed in tense motionlessness, the roar of a familiar Thunderdrum echoing distantly, before Sasha peered out through the cracks again.

<Everything’s still quiet, and Thornado’s by the main plaza,> he reported. <We might have a chance. What do you think? Teshra?>

He turned to glance at the Terror, but the little dragon was preoccupied, staring wide-eyed at their immediate surroundings. <Uh, Sasha, is it just me or are the shadows moving in here?> she asked quietly.

<That’s the most ridiculous question I’ve ever heard,> the tiger replied, rolling his eyes and turning around fully. <It’s probably just a trick of the li….>

He trailed off when he spotted what Teshra had seen: the shadows on the walls were shifting visibly and rapidly, and ropes of vantablack were pouring out of the cracks and corners around them. <I take that back,> Sasha whispered. <I think we need to get out of->

He didn’t get to finish his sentence before he and Teshra found themselves getting dragged out the suddenly wide open doors of the shed, the shadow ropes wrapped unbreakably around their legs as they were pulled along by a coalescing cloud of black that wafted down the streets through the village.

Sasha desperately scrabbled for a claw-hold on the buildings and objects they were passing, only for the shadow ropes binding him to tighten, pulling his paws together firmly.

The undignified display finally ended in the somewhat more colorful central plaza (thanks to the sheep that had tried to rub the paint off), where most of the displeased village had begun to gather. Stoick stood outside the forge, arms crossed and frowning deeply, and the black cloud dragged the troublemakers up in front of him before finally dropping them and coalescing solidly into a jet black, angry dragon that the tiger and Terror somehow immediately recognized.

<Oh no.>

* * *

They both saw I was livid, and I watched them start putting two and two together before I even demorphed, their expressions melting from one kind of abject terror to another form entirely. Once I was human again I marched forward and grabbed them by the scruffs of their necks, knowing just how humiliating it would look for a tiger to be cowering from a skinny human.

“One week. One week and you’re already forming an infamy comparable to the twins,” I growled. “Honestly Sasha, I expected a _lot_ more from you. What on EARTH were you thinking?!”

Neither of them had an answer, but I could practically feel the guilt that came with being caught flowing off of both of them. With nothing being spoken from the perpetrators I turned to Stoick. “Anything in particular you had in mind?” I asked. “It is your village they messed up.” I felt the pair wince in my hands as Stoick nodded.

“They can start by finding every paint splatter and scrubbing it until it’s spotless, be it stone, wood or whatever it got on,” he said pointedly. “After that, I’m sure ye have ideas of your own.”

I nodded, turning back to Sasha and Teshra, noticing for the first time somehow the helmet still perched precariously on the former’s head. I looked around and quickly spotted the owner, before snatching the hat off of Sasha’s head non-too-gently and tossed it over. “Here’s your helmet back Snotlout,” I called. “You get a say in the punishment as well after they’re done with paint duty.” The pair winced again as Snotlout grinned darkly.

As the crowd began to disperse, the troublemaker’s punishment announced satisfactorily, I glanced over to Amethyst and sighed. “I really hate to ask, but I have some duties to fulfill today, so…”

She sighed and nodded. “Yeah, sure, I’ll keep an eye on them,” she agreed, turning to lead the tiger and Terror to their chores, smacking them both roughly with her paw in the process. Then, I turned to Stoick. “Okay, back to more civil business: what kinds of preparations are still needed?”

As Sasha and Teshra got to work, the storm that had been building out over the ocean finally broke on the island, sheets of rain and occasionally hail pouring down. While the two were stuck outside with their work (I decided doing it in the rain would be part of their payback, though Amethyst was let off so she could take cover; Sasha and Teshra didn’t dare leave the job unfinished now), Stoick, Hiccup, Bertha (who’d shown up in the middle of the chaos), and the prospective lovers convened in the Great Hall.

I enjoyed greatly Hiccup’s uncomfortability in having to help set everything up when he clearly would have rather been in the forge working with Ember and Gobber, or off talking with Astrid (despite the teasing he got from his friends; no one was crazy enough save Holly and Cami to do the same to Astrid though), but I could relate somewhat to his fidgeting. Sitting at the table everyone was gathered round, I found myself completely unable to sit still, though for reasons other than planning.

Sasha and company had tried my patience in a manner I hadn’t experienced in a long time, and there was a storm raging outside, perfect Skrill weather and therefore perfect venting weather. So despite wanting to help Hiccup out, I soon found myself exiting from the conversation and heading out the door, nearly running into Valka and Cloudjumper as they entered, covering themselves from the rain.

As soon as I was outside I looked up through the rain to the black clouds above, morphed, and took off with a roar. Rain quickly gave way to roiling clouds around me, and soon I felt the static building up on my spines, letting out another roar of excitement as the lightning flashed, sending me rocketing through the sky.

* * *

Valka watched on for a moment as the boy-turned-Skrill disappeared into the clouds, and lightning exploded in his wake. Then she chuckled as she followed Cloudjumper, turning and heading in to join her husband by the table.

“Can’t imagine what it would be like to take off like that,” she commented, still glancing at the door and eliciting a laugh from Stoick.

“Yes, a lot of us are somewhat envious of that,” he agreed, “though I hear Hiccup’s close to being able te do the same thing.” He glanced at his son, and smiled. “Oh, and don’t tell him I told you, unless he already did, but I hear he was plannin’ on making you a pair of those wings now that he’s figured out how te make them work.”

Valka smiled at the thought, before turning to watch the proceedings before her.

“Alrigh’, so time and place have been decided,” Bertha was announcing, “and several from my tribe are beginning preparations to arrange for food, with notice sent to Johann for extra supplies. Our ceremonial proceedings are as yet undecided however, seeing as how some changes are needed thanks to the past couple of years, and standards for exchanging of gifts and other more minor details still need to be drawn up an’ finalized.” She glanced around the table, making sure she had everyone’s attention, before continuing. “Also, will the weddings actually be taking place at the same time, or one after the other on the decided day?”

“Ours first!” Tuffnut announced, only to be conked over the head by his sister.

“No, ours!” Ruff yelled. “I’m the oldest!”

“Says who? We’re twins!”

“Mom did, by five minutes!”

“Well, you’re just marrying Fishlegs; he’s a librarian and mapmaker. I’m marrying the Bog Burglar heiress!”

“Ruff, Tuff!” Hiccup snapped. “Shut up!” He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples before letting out a breath. “Ookay, so maybe together would be a better idea to get rid of this bickering, if that’s alright with everyone else.”

“Very well,” Stoick agreed, seeing the nods from the rest of the present company. “If they’re to be wed at the same time we will have to construct the ceremony carefully. First off, the joint proceedings…”

* * *

That afternoon when the storm finally began to move on, I flew back home and unloaded the lightning energy I had built up into the circuits at the house. I’d been driving the local electrical company insane for a couple months, because though the transfer and storage process of putting lightning into electrical circuits used up most of the energy, after every storm I ended up charged enough to run the whole town for a couple of days, and the company had been basically forced to pay my family for the energy rather than the other way around (though my parents were thrilled by this new turn of events).

Then, I returned to Berk for a short period to keep tabs on and collect the Descendants who had gone to the village. Sasha and Teshra were soaked and miserable, but Amethyst was in high spirits; she’d helped Snotlout enact his punishment for the pair after they’d finished paint duty. I didn’t ask for the details, but there was something mentioned about foot massages, and the looks on the punished pair’s faces told me it had indeed been punishment enough.

We returned home, and I finally decided to let up on the two, allowing them to relax by a heater to dry off while my mom caught me up on what the others had been up to at home.

“Nara and Holly were at the cove until the storm came in, and they’ve been downstairs since they got back,” she explained, before shaking her head. “You brought home a dragon that has the same affinity for sharp projectiles as your sister, did you realize that?”

“Nadders tend to be that way,” I joked. “So I take it they’re getting along well enough?”

“More than well,” my mom chuckled. “Call me crazy, but I think they’re going to be heading over to ask Hiccup for a proper saddle within the week.” At this, her expression turned more serious. “Hawken, I know they’ll end up flying together, and probably have already, that much is clear. But, I want you to promise me that you’ll teach her to be safe.”

I chuckled. “It’s Holly, only so much I can do, and actually I’d say Astrid would be the better teacher in that case, seeing as how she rides a Nadder as well after all.”

“You know what I mean, and I still want you to supervise. She is your sister, and my daughter.”

I sighed. “Mom, I assure you they’ll be fine. There’s little that I value more than my sister, and I wouldn’t let anything happen if I can help it. But that aside, how was everyone else today?”

She glanced at the stairs to the basement. “Feren’s been keeping an eye on the others mostly, and Zipeau’s made some sort of deal with you father concerning workspace down there.” She smirked. “Sam’s finally got someone who grasps mechanics and technical stuff to talk with beyond Holly and her knives. That it’s a dinosaur….well at this point I guess it’s just the norm for our family.”

My mother gave me another serious look then. “Kingsley has been kind of…I don’t know, lonely looking, so he was sitting with me most of the day.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I’m worried about a cobra that I’ve known for a week. I can’t believe how used to this I already feel.”

“Well, you’ve lived three years now with a world full of dragons in your back yard,” I mused. “This hardly qualifies as stranger than that, especially when you consider we’ve had snakes, even if they don’t talk, in the house for some 15 years.”

She chuckled and nodded. “True. Oh, and I was wanting to ask: how’s the wedding plan going?”

That brought me to smirk again. “Heh, Hiccup’s frazzled already, and the twins are no help, big surprise. It’s a little sad though, considering the fact that _they’re_ the ones getting married and they’re slowing down the plans.” I glanced out the back door. “Fishlegs also wanted to say thanks for that book of…whatever it was you gave him; wedding traditions, was it? Oh, and we all have invitations to the ceremony, and I have a few to pass out to some people around here.”

“Even Holly?” my mom asked. I chuckled. “Yeah, she was invited at Ruffnut’s request, believe it or not, and I think there was something else in the details concerning her but I can’t remember it offhand.”

My mother chuckled at that note; Holly got along best with Astrid and Camicazi out of the whole group, but she had a mischievous streak of her own that, on her worst days, could rival the twins themselves, and Ruffnut had capitalized on that.

Feren sauntered up the stairs at that moment, and I nodded to him in greeting, before my mother spoke up with another inquiry. “Do you think Holly will like going to a wedding like this though?”

“Oh, I definitely think she’ll like this one,” I replied. “It is a Viking wedding, after all.”

* * *

A couple of days later the sun broke into my room, and I woke up, _again_ , to Sasha’s rear end in my face.

“Sasha, if you fart on me again I swear I’ll burn your butt to the point you can’t sit down,” I growled lowly, scooting away. The feline shifted slightly, but other than that he didn’t move.

There was, however, a dangerously telltale grumbling noise that came as a warning this time. My scowl deepened, and I drew in a deep breath, firing point-blank. Sasha screamed as he leapt up off the bed and bolted out of the room; like the others he was mostly fireproof, one of the universal things the Descendants had inherited, but few things can withstand a direct shot of Nadder fire. In his wake, this time it was Amethyst and Feren who were rendered immobile with laughter, earning a loud “That’s not funny!!” from the tiger across the house.

What can I say? I warned him!

Later that day I met up with Hiccup, both Sasha and Teshra in tow, and Hiccup immediately noticed Sasha’s blackened fur.

“So, do I dare to ask what happened?” he asked, already trying to hold back a laugh. “Sasha, it looks like you sat in Gobber’s hearth!”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” the tiger replied curtly, walking away to avoid further humiliation.

“He was learning a lesson,” I explained shortly, glancing at Sasha pointedly. “You two are free to go, so long as you stay out of trouble; I need to help Hiccup out here, but Stoick and Valka are both aware they need to keep an eye on you, and I know both Amethyst and Twintail are around the village today. Behave.”

They both nodded meekly, and turned to go do whatever it was they planned to do. I, meanwhile, turned toward the forge with Hiccup, who looked to me for answers.

“I know there’s no way Sasha’s going to tell me, so I’ll ask you,” he began. “What did he get such a funky fur burn from?”

“You recall that phase when Toothless found it incredibly funny to Dutch oven you?” I asked. Hiccup immediately turned a slight shade of green.

“Guh, don’t remind me of that,” he muttered. “Never letting him find old fish again. You saying Sasha tried something like that?”

“He’s done it twice, and the second time, yeah, he learned that farting on someone who can breathe fire is a bad idea.”

Hiccup snorted. “Yeah, unfortunately it doesn’t work on dragons when their victim can’t breathe fire.”

“Well, that’s your problem,” I teased, chuckling.

Hiccup shook his head. “Yeah, yeah, lord your superiority in escaping nasty pranks over me. Anyway, you want to work on the pavilion decorations today, or continue on stacking up the armor extras?”

I frowned in thought. “Well, Cami will strangle us if the decorations aren’t ready in time, so let’s get working on those first.”

“Sounds good. Oh, and we also have a set of saddles that Gobber’s enlisting us to help with.”

“On second thought, maybe I’ll just take off for a flight today.”

“Hey! You promised!”

* * *

Sasha watched as his brother disappeared into the forge, before turning to his reptilian sister sitting on his shoulder.

<So I’m not risking something as big as the sheep paint thing again, but you got any good ideas?> he asked lightly. Teshra sat back as if in thought for a minute, before a grin spread across her face.

<Well, Tuff mentioned there’s a birthday celebration in the Great Hall today for Spitelout. That means lots of open mead barrels and mugs, and nobody sober enough to pay attention.> She smirked and held up a small plastic bag in her paw, filled with tiny disc-shaped seeds.

Sasha chuckled. <Hawken will strangle you just for stealing his scorpion pepper seeds, you know that right?>

<Oh, he’s already got a dozen plants growing, he won’t miss a handful,> Teshra scoffed. <Besides, you heard how Spitelout was acting not too long ago; they’ll thank us!>

The tiger was silent for a moment, before putting on a grin to match the Terror and nodding. <Alright, let’s move out then! But act nonchalant; stealthy is the name of this game!>

They both nodded in mutual agreement, and sauntered off to the Hall. There would be many fireworks to follow that day too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mischievous, sarcastic types I love having fun with, so don't expect Sasha's antics to end here...


	9. Hazim Shel Halailah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This still ranks as one of my favorite poems; what are your thoughts? And, we have another chapter with a title from another language; any guesses on its meaning? This one shouldn't be too hard.

_Do not ever bring the ire_

_Of creatures born of thunder and fire_

_Worse it is to anger ones_

_Tied to them by bond or blood_

_Tread with care, respect, and know_

_Even the misunderstood have souls_

_Else bring upon yourself the sight_

_Of facing the fury of the night_

The storm had cleared and the seas had smoothed once more, both signs good news for the vessel he stood upon. Even better, with the gentle wind behind them it made for faster sailing and they would reach their destination in mere hours.

The impatient men that came with being stuck on a boat for two weeks were quickly wearing on his nerves however; despite all of them being loyal to a fault to him, and would rough it out right by his side no matter the aim, they all still had their differences.

“Eret, are you sure that we’re still on the right heading? We could have sailed past it by now, especially in that storm!”

The Sami’s scowl deepened, and turned to address his crewmate. “Yes, if our guide was correct,” he said. “The heavens know he was off in the head, but you don’t command a fighting force like he had on the seas without decent navigational prowess. The island should be only just ahead of here; a day at most left, so get moving if you’re bored!” He gestured to the unmanned oars. “You want to get there faster, you are more than welcome to start rowing!”

Just as he expected, there was a reluctant silence, and Eret snorted before turning to look out over the ocean. Ever since Drago and his forces had mysteriously disappeared from the region things had been fairly quiet, and the trapper had found himself, for the first time in years, free to pursue quarries of his own interest. Dragons were old hat though still fun to wrangle at times, and he’d tried his hand at hunting other creatures, like the snow-colored bears of the icy northern waters (they were an interesting battle in and of themselves, and had eventually led him to something of far greater interest: Woolly Howls, dragons he’d long thought were only fairy tales). He only had a pact to check in every now and then with the trapper’s league coordinator, but even then Viggo was mostly concerned with keeping himself and his core crew off the radar, not caring what the others did so long as they didn’t hand out info too wantonly.

Then things had gotten interesting. Strange stories had reached Eret’s ears in the past year or so about their current destination, but he had mostly dismissed them as fanciful stretching of the truth, or completely false tales designed to intimidate strangers. Anywhere people coincided with dragons there were bound to be a few outlandish stories, but at least one of them had continued to be repeated with matching details, and this held intrigue to the trapper.

The young Viking chief Eret had run into while trading on the edges of the mainland of Norway had reaffirmed the legend: the presence of a Night Fury on an island called Berk, possibly the last of its kind, and that was a chance far too tantalizing for an opportunistic trapper like Eret to pass up. There were an uncountable number of characters who would be interested buyers in such a creature as a pet, or trophy, and Eret himself was tempted to try holding the dragon for himself if he managed to capture it; an intimidating beast like that and no one would belittle the poor Sami trapper again, not even Viggo, for all his skills.

“Set your sights forward, men!” Eret called, finally spotting the telltale hump of land on the horizon, the faint outline of mountains rising up from it. “Our destination is ahead!”

A cheer rose up, and Eret nodded in agreement. Good things were in store for him; he could feel it.

Or, at least so he thought.

* * *

<So, why was I the one you dragged out here?>

“Because Hawken was busy and you know Toothless will slow my progress on this any way he can think of. Plus, I designed the wings after Night Furies, so you’re the best other option.”

Amethyst sighed and glanced around the cove. <Toothless will strangle me for this, you know that,> she deadpanned. <But, I can see the point here apparently where he can’t.>

Hiccup smirked. “Nah, he’s too attached to you to do that.”

<And mention something like that again and I’ll flat out refuse to help.>

“Ugh, fine, fine, I’ll drop it.”

The Night Fury nodded, and spread her wings, flexing them. <Okay, follow my lead; actually learning how to fly rather than automatically knowing requires step-by-step work.>

“Yeah, I know, had to do something like that with Toothless back when he still had only one tailfin,” Hiccup quipped, before focusing. The gem on the wing apparatus activated in response, unfurling the artificial wings to match Amethyst’s.

<Okay,> the dragon said, <now, angling to control lift, balance, and turbulence compensation is more important than actually generating thrust or lift, so we’ll start there…>

A half hour later, Hiccup had managed to gain enough practice to attempt gliding on Raven’s Point, and was in the middle of tying off the rope (much reinforced compared to the one he’d used with his and Toothless’ first test flight) when Toothless appeared, gliding down toward them with Teshra on his shoulder for reasons unknown.

<And what, dare I ask, are you doing?> he growled disapprovingly, landing on the bluff. Teshra immediately left his shoulder and flapped over to Amethyst, greeting her sister.

Hiccup groaned. “I’m getting flying lessons so that I don’t inadvertently kill myself trying the wings out on my own,” he retorted. “I know you wouldn’t be much help so I asked Amethyst instead.”

Toothless looked over at his female counterpart. <Do I have to restate how bad an idea this whole thing is?> he asked.

Amethyst sighed, tail lashing back and forth in impatience. <Well,> she began, <would you rather have him learn by just jumping off a cliff? We all know it’s not beyond him.>

Toothless’ mouth opened, but no response left it. Amethyst smirked. <Oh, you don’t have a response to that? How surprising.>

<I just don’t want my brother getting himself involved in something else that will end up getting him hurt without reason. It would be easy enough to glide with the wings, he doesn’t necessarily have to go all out with learning how to fly!>

“I am right here, you know,” Hiccup interjected, but he went unheard as Amethyst snorted and snapped back at Toothless.

<I’m not going to let him get hurt!> she hissed. <I am more than responsible enough to prevent that happening, and we’ve gone over preparations for preventative measures, thank you very much!>

<I have plenty of foundation for my concern,> Toothless responded. <You might be responsible enough, that I will admit, but Hiccup does have a record.>

Now Amethyst glanced at Hiccup, and saw his protest building. <Everyone has a record of some sort,> she huffed. <Honestly Toothless, you’re overreacting to this, and everyone else has agreed that it’s at least a good backup idea. And like there is any project around here that doesn’t involve some sort of risk; pull your head out of->

<Don’t you dare finish that sentence,> Toothless snapped, pupils narrowing.

“Okay, BOTH of you cut it out!” Hiccup finally exploded, standing up straight and glaring at the two bickering Night Furies. “I really don’t know what’s gotten into the two of you, Toothless more so, but it needs to end.” He focused on Toothless, and crossed his arms. “I am going to learn how to use these one way or another, otherwise my building them will have been a huge waste of valuable time for no good end and I’m not accepting that, and the next time I get knocked off of the saddle I won’t have any other options but pray you catch me in time. I trust you with my life, but we’ve both been stuck in situations before where even a Night Fury isn’t fast enough to catch me. Do you want that?”

Toothless’ expression softened slightly at that, almost reaching the point of looking shameful. <No,> he finally muttered lowly. Hiccup nodded in response, before turning to Amethyst.

“And, I think you might want to take a break and cool off,” he said pointedly. “We’ve been out here a while and it’s clear you’re tired and getting cranky-don’t try to deny it,” he quipped when he saw Amethyst readying to disagree, “-and in the meantime, I am going to see if I can find Hawken; at least he should be able to have a level head at the moment.”

At Hiccup’s pointed expression, Amethyst sighed and nodded reluctantly, turning and taking to the sky with Teshra still clinging to her shoulder. In a few moments, she was over the trees and out of sight.

Toothless watched her go, feeling a pang of guilt at having gotten worked up like he had (especially as he started mulling over what had been said and realizing he was overreacting), and turned toward Hiccup, who was busy untying the rope on the tree stump. As the Viking stood up and marched off into the woods, muttering to himself, Toothless hesitantly followed.

<Hiccup, look, I’m->

“Save it, Toothless,” Hiccup snapped, before stopping and rubbing his forehead. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be like that,” he sighed. “The past couple weeks have been a lot for me, but that little spat back there between you two was over the top. What has gotten into you?”

<I don’t know, honestly,> Toothless admitted quietly, padding cautiously up next to his rider. <Look, the wings…okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so adamant about you not trying to use them. It’s…it’s a good idea, but it makes me nervous.> He looked apologetically up at Hiccup. <I’ve seen you hurt too many times not to react to all your new harebrained schemes.>

Hiccup smiled softly, placing a hand on Toothless’ head. “I know. Hey, I promise I’ll make sure I know exactly what I’m doing before I go jump off any cliff, alright?”

<It’s never stopped you before.>

They both chuckled, tension broken, and Hiccup turned to embrace the dragon for a brief moment before they separated again, Hiccup giving Toothless a joking punch.

“Oh, and just so you know, I expect you to fully make it up to Amethyst,” he said lightly. “No good having a pair of Night Furies at each other’s throats when they’re going to have to hang around each other eventually.”

Toothless snorted and stuck his tongue out, only succeeding in making Hiccup smirk even more. “Oh, quit that,” he laughed. “I’ll make sure it happens. And if you’re going to follow me, then come on; Hawken’s probably home by now.”

* * *

Water spilled down, soaking my head and making me splutter, before I stuck my head out of the greenhouse and located the Stenonychosaurus at the kitchen table. “You done with that pump system yet, or am I mopping this up and hand-watering again today?” I quipped.

“I’m only making a few adjustments; it’ll be ready in a moment,” came the exasperated reply. I snorted and retreated back into the humid enclosure, looking around more or less with satisfaction (other than the drippy hose above me). The cocktail of venom pesticides I’d mixed up had been liberally applied to the greenhouse, and shortly thereafter the other two growing areas I had, with spectacular results: not a speck of fungus, unsightly algae, or any pesky sapsuckers anywhere to be found. Though, it wasn’t something that could be marketed well, seeing as how production was painfully low and slow; that thought made me frown.

A tap on the plastic doorway drew my attention out of my thoughts and up to Zipeau, who held up the pump system he’d designed for the automated watering rig in the greenhouse. “Here you go, señor impatience,” he drawled sarcastically. “Anything else that requires my attention, or am I now free to return to my book?”

I shook my head and climbed out of the greenhouse. “No, no, I’m actually going to head to Berk for a while so nothing I need help with here. And weren’t you reading the whole time I was at work this morning?”

Zipeau shrugged. “Can you blame me? I’m a bookworm by nature.”

“As am I,” I chuckled. “Alright, I’ll see you when I get back. And tell Embron to leave the house sometime today, will you? He was sociable enough a couple weeks ago, but for a Nightmare he’s becoming incredibly introverted.”

“I heard that!” came the growl from downstairs, prompting Zipeau and I to both laugh before I headed toward the back of the house.

As I stepped out the back door however, I was surprised to find Hiccup and Toothless halfway across the yard, coming my way. “Hey guys, what brings you here?” I called. “I was just on my way to Berk.”

“Flight practice was cut a little short, and I have an otherwise rare day off,” Hiccup replied.

“Oh?” I intoned. “What cut it short? I recall you were having Amethyst help you out with the practice, was it something with her? Where’d she go?”

Toothless’ guilty look was impossible to miss, and my eyebrow arched as Hiccup started explaining. “Well, our two resident Night Furies had a little spat over the flight practice, and I suggested that Amethyst should go flying to cool off for a while, which she did.”

I nodded, pursing my lips. “Ah. Well, hopefully she’ll be back soon and we can work that out.” I gave a pointed look to Toothless, who drooped further. “In the meantime, I have nothing to do here, so what say we head back to Berk and try and figure out something to use up our time? And, is Cami still here?”

Hiccup nodded. “Yeah, Bertha and company went back to Bog Island a while ago, but our princess of mischief decided to stick around and hang with her engaged for a while.”

We stepped through the portal and Hiccup climbed up onto Toothless’ saddle as I morphed, all three of us casually taking to the air. “In all honesty,” Hiccup continued, “between her and the twins, and Sasha now, the village is actually rather lively these days, though perhaps not for the best reasons; wish we’d figure out how to channel all that energy elsewhere rather than riling up the residents.”

“What, you haven’t gotten those races you were talking about figured out by now?” I teased. Hiccup groaned and his eyes narrowed as he focused forward rather than reply directly; that gave me all the answer I needed. Funny, we’d seen the movie the year before and nobody had acted on the dragon race idea yet.

As we cruised over the village, a familiar red dragon materialized below and glided up next to us. <Hey Spitfire,> I greeted. <You and Kingsley see anything while on patrol this morning?>

Around the Changewing’s neck, the mentioned cobra was wrapped snugly, and he lifted his head up in response to his name. <Nothing in particular,> Kingsley said, <though there was a rather irritated Night Fury flying off the east side of the island.>

“Yeah, we’re going to try working on that later,” Hiccup noted.

<Oh, and something that looked like perhaps a fishing vessel along the northern shore,> Spitfire added. <Didn’t look like any of ours, or any ships from Bog or Meathead Isles, so I thought I’d mention it.>

I nodded; the oceans were open to anyone, and it wasn’t uncommon for traders or traveling fishing boats to pass by on occasion without stopping at the village proper, so it probably wasn’t too much to worry about, but I stored the notice away anyway. “Alright, so we’ve got something to check out later,” I commented. “I’ll make sure to put it on the list. By the way, neither of you would have happened to have seen”-

“YAAAHHHH!!”

The war cry rang out above me, and I spun to see Stormfly diving our way, her blonde rider leaping off her saddle, arms outstretched. My eyes widened, realizing the young Viking’s motive, and dove to the side.

I moved too late though, as Camicazi’s hand made contact for just a moment with my tailfin as she fell past. Cami cackled, dropping away quickly to be caught by Stormfly again.

“You’re it!” she yelled. “Ha ha ha!”

I scowled, before my expression quickly morphed into a grin. “Alright Cami, you asked for it!” I yelled, glancing at Hiccup. “Tag team? No doubt she’s playing with Ruff and Tuff.”

Hiccup looked down at Toothless, who put on a dangerous smirk and nodded. “Alright,” he agreed, “let’s do it!”

* * *

Amethyst barely noticed the island passing beneath her, too many thoughts racing through her mind instead. Teshra’s attempts at banter (which were more the Terror just rattling away random thoughts) were also pushed to the backburner of her mind, the Terror’s voice becoming more background noise than anything else.

<It’s really understandable though; he’s been there a lot longer than we have, so he would know if something was going to go wrong with….> Teshra trailed off as she glanced down at the Night Fury she clung to. <Are you listening at all here?>

Amethyst sighed and shook her head. <No, not really. Sorry.>

Teshra huffed. <Well, you’re certainly never going to get past this if you stay locked up in your own head all the time; you’re almost as bad as Hawken is.>

<I know!> the Night Fury snapped, eyes squeezing shut as she tried to calm down. <I know. Sorry, look, I’m out here to clear my head, because I really don’t want to go off like that again. I just need some air, and some quiet.> She glanced back at her semi-sister. <Out of curiosity though, how are you still holding on? Anything else would have fallen off by now.>

Teshra grinned. <Claws help, and your crests here are a good paw hold. Really, if you need to fly, then fly! I can stay put!>

Finally, Amethyst managed to crack a smile. <Alright, you asked for it then; hold tight!> Wings slammed downward, and the pair rocketed forward, Amethyst barrel-rolling as she roared, letting her frustration out into the air.

* * *

The morning had been quiet as they’d moved all their necessary equipment onto the shore, and nothing much more than the occasional Terror or distant Nadder had broken the quiet of the forest the covered the northern portion of the island. They hadn’t wanted to try going near the village if they could help it, but now the crew was starting to think if the risk would be worth it just to find something.

Eret’s head whipped around first at the sound though when it broke the quiet, reaching his ears through the trees: a loud, shrieking roar he’d only heard once before, when he was very young. Following it to the source, the trapper quickly spotted the black figure speeding through the sky, heading their direction. Alone.

“Heads up men!” he called, running over and cranking up the net launcher, preparing it with ammo. “Night Fury on the horizon! Get the bolas ready; someone find those blasted darts if we need them! This is our best chance!”

Grabbing a second wrapped net from his passing crewmate he loaded it into the launcher behind the first one and pulled back the tension lever. Swinging the targeting mechanism around, Eret aimed toward the dark reptile ahead of him.

“Alright Night Fury,” he muttered quietly, “let’s see what you’re made of. This trapper’s got a reputation to uphold.”

* * *

Black wings snapped out wide as Amethyst flared, grinning as she slowed down into a glide, closing her eyes as she caught a low air current and floated above the trees. Teshra decided it was safe to slowly release the death grip she had on the Fury’s spinal crests, the Terror looking up toward the larger dragon’s head.

<Feel better now?>

Amethyst smirked and chuckled. <Yeah, perhaps,> she replied. Slowing down to a hover, she looked over as Teshra took off from her back to fly up in front of her.

<Well,> the Terror mused, <we’re almost all the way to the other side of the island; if we take it leisurely it’ll probably use up most of the afternoon to get back to Berk. Should we start heading back?>

Amethyst glanced toward the mountains splitting the island, and let out a breath. <Yeah, probably. Hawken will worry if we don’t turn->

The noise of something whistling through the air cut her off, drawing their attention downward. Amethyst turned, expecting to see another dragon heading their way. Instead, a weighted net filled her vision, spinning with extreme accuracy straight toward her.

The Night Fury yelped in surprise and turned to dodge the projectile, but the ropes hit and wrapped around her, the weighted corners swinging around and entangling her wings and legs.

Then the realization hit her: someone else was on the island, someone who hunted dragons. No one in Berk dared to use nets or bolas on dragons, not even in play.

<Teshra!> she yelled, fearing the net had caught the smaller dragon as well. But, twisting around as she fell, Amethyst spotted the Terror flapping desperately in her direction. <Teshra, no!> she yelled out.

The rest of her words were cut off as the Night Fury crashed through the canopy, branches scraping across her wings and tail before she plowed into the ground. Dazed, a pained groan escaped her throat before she slowly turned and looked up at Teshra.

<Go…get Hawken,> she urged. <Now!> Her head turned the other way to see a group of men definitely not from the archipelago rushing through the trees in her direction.

Teshra knew she wouldn’t be much help, her natural size limiting her usefulness in such a situation, but it pained her to leave Amethyst to whoever these people were. There wasn’t much else the Terror could do though, so she reluctantly nodded and turned, speeding back toward the village, but no before yelling out, <Don’t say anything to them!>

Amethyst snorted, before her expression turned to a snarl as the lead man skidded to a halt in front of her, ropes unfurling in his hands. <I won’t,> she growled. <I’ll scream it.>

* * *

I peered out between the buildings, tail twitching in anticipation. My targets thought they were hidden, completely invisible to most eyes. They didn’t know who was it though, and they definitely didn’t see me. My grin widened, green eyes narrowing, and I slunk forward. Just a little bit closer…

“HI!!” “AAAAHHHH!!”

I leapt out and tagged both Orha and Ember, the former dropping their shared cloak (shared thanks to Ember’s armor) in shock, before growling.

“You asked for it Hawken!” he yelled, wings flaring out.

“Only if you can catch me!” I threw back, morphing fully Wind Fury and taking to the air, laughing maniacally. Hiccup and Toothless joined me soon, both of them wearing matching grins.

“Fishlegs and Meatlug are tagged as well,” Hiccup said breathlessly. “That whole team is it now!”

<Pay attention you two!> Toothless barked. <We’re being followed!>

We looked down to see the Gronckle and her rider right next to the Shadowracer and Ember, the two pairs splitting off and circling around to try and trap us.

“Tsk, tsk, don’t they ever learn that you can’t catch a Fury without surprise?” I toned lightly. Hiccup grinned again. “They will now!” he laughed. A quick turn, and he and Toothless blasted off. I rocketed upward, before flipping around and diving, the scream of my wings alerting Ember to my changing trajectory. She and Orha tried to turn to tag me, but by the time they were in position I was already well past them, sending them tumbling from the wind of my passing as a white blur over the rooftops.

I spotted Valka and Cloudjumper up ahead of me, back from their visit earlier that day to Tohar’s nest up north, and as I shot by them I yelled out “Hi Valka bye Valka!” and laughed at her shocked expression, barely able to track me as I sped away.

Finally slowing down as I coursed out over the harbor, scales turning black once more, I turned to see Fishlegs having given up on his chasing Hiccup, instead focusing on going after the twins, driving them right toward his partners.

“Well, we lost their focus for now,” Hiccup’s voice piped up nearby, and I turned to see him and Toothless gliding over to me. “I guess we should thank Cami; this might be the best way for all of us to let off a little steam that I can think of.”

I smirked. “Yeah, definitely good. Though, imagine if all the Descendants had decided to join in; I don’t think we’d be able to keep up with the hectic antics that would follow!”

“Eh, we’d just need a bigger playing field.”

“We’ve got the whole sky to use. Okay, imagine if Holly and Nara joined in.”

“Two words: fly away!”

We all broke out laughing, images of Holly’s tag tactics running through our heads, before a desperate scream echoed over the village.

“HAWKEN!!!”

My head snapped around, spotting the flitting figure of Teshra speeding in over the village. As soon as she spotted me and Toothless she bolted our way, accidentally forgetting to slow down and overshooting us before backpedaling.

“Hawken…there’s…the north shore…Amethyst…” she panted.

“Okay, okay, calm down for a minute and take a deep breath,” I ordered. Teshra nodded, landing on my back and gulping down a few breaths full of air, before trying to continue.

“Amethyst and I, we…we flew off to the northern shore earlier; she was trying to calm down,” she explained, still a bit out of breath. “There…there were people out there, not from Berk or the other islands. They…they…” she paused and took in another breath, trying to clear her head.

“They what?” Toothless pressed, eyes widening in worry. Teshra looked at him, eyes jumping around in panic.

“They shot her down!” she finally blurted. “She ordered me to get you, Hawken, but by now I don’t know what they could have”-

“Whoa! Toothless!”

Teshra was cut off by Hiccup’s exclamation as Toothless bolted without warning, air screaming as he headed straight north. I glanced at Teshra, who moved to hold tight to my back crests, before I snapped my wings downward and followed.

It was clear Toothless was more than worried enough to deem it worthy of rushing to Amethyst’s aid, so with both of us heading to find what had happened, whoever had landed on Berk was going to end up having a very bad day.

* * *

Eret groaned as he pulled on the rope, lending a hand in dragging the Night Fury toward the ship. Not only was she (he was certain it was a female, despite word of mouth suggesting otherwise) a lot heavier than she looked, which he attributed to the massive wings, but she’d also put up an incredible struggle. The shriek that left her jaws when they’d gotten near had almost left his eardrums bleeding before they’d managed to rope her jaws shut, and she’d knocked out one of his men with a fireball before the muzzle had been drawn tight. Two other men had received dislocated shoulders when her tail had lashed out unexpectedly moments later, and though at least one of the men had pulled out the dragonroot darts and shot her with one, it had absolutely no effect, worryingly.

Eret knew that most of the Boulder Class dragons were immune to the effects of dragonroot, but none of the other Strike Class species he’d come across, or Night Fury relatives, had shown such a trait. He shrugged it off though as one of the many unique traits of the species that made them so elusive, and looked ahead; they’d finally reached the beach where the ship was anchored offshore. Now, with more room to maneuver, everyone set about securing the Night Fury properly so that she wouldn’t pose a threat on the ship even in bad weather.

Something felt off though; every time Eret looked at the dragon, he felt as if she was yet up to something; the look in her eyes was a clear message painting the notion of a hidden hand. But, the trapper had seen similar looks in others of the more intelligent dragon species; the beasts bluffed with looks as much as they did wings and colors in order to scare their attackers into fearing repercussions, with little to back up their displays.

“You’re quite a handful,” he muttered, pulling tight the rope in his hands again. “But, I guess I ought not to expect anything less from so infamous a dragon. Though,” he mused, glancing over the reptile, “for a creature nicknamed ‘Offspring of Lightning and Death’ I might actually be a bit disappointed.”

A savage hiss emanated from the Night Fury, her eyes narrowing, and Eret could have sworn the dragon was giving him an insult of her own in some manner. He just shrugged though, content to know that it couldn’t talk, and turned to the ship, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“Arveni, prepare a holding rig!” he yelled. “And make sure that it’s maximum security; we don’t want this one getting loose!” Looping up the rope in his hands, he made to start pulling the dragon along the sand again.

“Uh, Eret, her escaping from the boat might be the least of our problems,” his first mate, a short, stocky man by the name of Grimligh, spoke up, voice rising through the sentence. Eret scowled and turned to glance at the man, before following his gaze.

Then the sound rose up and reached all their ears: the high-pitched, unmistakable whistle of a Night Fury at high speed.

Eret’s eyes widened when he spotted the pair of figures blazing through the sky. “I thought this one was the only…” he trailed off as he glanced at his captured prize, who was undeniably looking at him with a smug grin. “Right. Okay men, two more opportunities! Grab the nets!”

They didn’t get the chance to acquire their traps before an indigo fireball ripped through two of the nearby net launchers, throwing the nearest men to the ground as the shockwave slammed outward, the structures themselves blown to splinters and burning chunks.

Eret dove to the side as a second searing blast carved a crater in the sand a short ways from where he was standing, before hearing someone above him yell “Whoa, whoa, Toothless hold on!!”

An irate roar followed, and he looked up to see one single Night Fury carrying a rider dressed in a slick black suit the likes of which he’d never seen before, and the other….

Eret blinked in surprise, looking around frantically for the second Night Fury that had been on the loose, but somehow it had vanished in the chaos. Instead, he was greeted by a second young man landing in a crouch about ten feet away from him on the disturbed sand. This one carried a dangerous look in his eyes as he glanced up toward the trapper, an exotic looking staff in one hand, and a green and orange Terrible Terror that was glaring at the trapper from the man’s opposite shoulder.

Eret stood up slowly and brushed himself off, facing the man in the less-shiny looking black clothes and signaling to his crew as the still-circling Night Fury and his rider came to a pointed landing nearby, the rider jumping off and drawing a blade made from a metal Eret had also never seen before, not unlike the rider’s clothing.

“You are trespassing without due permission on the island of Berk, and dually in the process of breaking one of our highest laws,” the rider stated, pointing the blade toward Eret. “State who you are and just how you managed to get it into your head that you were allowed to come here unannounced and shoot down our residents.”

The Sami was admittedly taken aback a little by the abrasiveness of the pair of skinny post-teens; neither one of them could have been much past twenty years old, but one –no, scratch that, both of them it appeared as the second only had a Terror with him –had managed to ride a Night Fury, so he deemed it likely wise to comply, at least until he found something to hold as an advantage over them.

“I am Eret, son of Eret,” he stated aloud, immediately noticing the telling looks the pair of humans shared, “and I am here to uphold the reputation I have built over the years as the finest dragon trapper in the northern waters.” He grinned and gestured to the one Night fury he’d managed to truss up behind him. “After all, not just anyone can manage to take down a Night Fury, let alone do it unscathed.”

“I know, I’ve done it before,” the sword-wielding Viking growled. “That doesn’t answer the question of why you think you can do so here.”

Eret shrugged. “I was tipped off by a man on the mainland that a Night Fury lived here,” he explained, reaching behind him for his knife as if casually scratching his back. “He quite apparently lied or was misled himself as he claimed there was only one, but no matter. With no psychotic overlord breathing down my back anymore and trying to push me around to his whims I am free to go where I please and do with my quarry as I very well wish to. And this creature could certainly fetch a hefty price on the markets down south, or provide a figurehead for my own reputation.”

“You’re talking as if you think she’s actually leaving with you,” the second young man spoke up now, twirling the staff in his hand and taking a step forward. “In some manner of speaking, she belongs to me, and I certainly have no intention of letting her go anywhere anytime soon.”

Eret snorted. “Oh? And who are you two to stop me? The lands and oceans are free reign, and I’ve already dealt with one Night Fury, so yours there won’t be much issue, even if…”

He trailed off, eyebrow rising, as the unbound black dragon snarled, his spinal crests elongating and splitting into two rows, the scales around them beginning to fluoresce bright sapphire blue at the same time.

“Gee, you are really dense if you don’t know already,” the first rider chuckled. “That, or you’re spending way too much time on your ship; we were the ones who ended Drago, whom I am guessing is the overlord you mentioned. I am Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, heir to the chiefdom of Berk and renowned dragon whisperer. And this here,” he gestured to his dragon, “is Toothless Haddock, the Alpha dragon of the Barbaric Archipelago. Oh, and our good friend over here,” he gestured with a sweeping hand to the second boy, “is Hawken Carlton, the current guardian of this part of the world and dragon master like me.”

Eret’s other eyebrow rose this time. “Well, certainly a colorful bunch of characters you are then, and quite a story to swallow. Perhaps I’ve underestimated you, if you took on Drago as you claim.” With a smirk, he pulled out his knife, spinning it warningly. “But you live in a village; you make use of the land here perhaps, but beyond the kingdoms of the mainland there’s no one rich or powerful enough to own such an island as this; out here it’s free reign.”

“Even if that were the case, “Hiccup interjected, “you are still breaking a law that has been agreed upon throughout the archipelago. Dragons are considered here citizens of Berk, and despite the fact that you are laughingly wrong about us owning the island, you have already committed a crime heinous enough for us to jail you without further ado. Permanently.”

Eret burst out laughing, unable to hold it in any longer. “Citizens?” he guffawed. “They’re animals! You can’t be serious. Want to run that by me again so I can get in another good laugh?”

Hiccup sighed and glanced at his human companion. “Well Hawken, you want to take over here and elaborate?”

* * *

I smiled thinly and spun my staff again, pointing the tip toward Toothless. “Eret, do you know _why_ the Night Fury is called the ‘Offspring of Lightning and Death’?”

“Supposedly it’s the deadliest and most feared dragon known to man,” Eret drawled. “Thus far I’m not convinced. What of it?”

“They earned that title for good reasons,” I continued. “Fastest naturally occurring species, the most powerful firepower of any dragon in existence, and one of the most intelligent. If you don’t listen carefully, I’ll ensure you experience the Night’s Fury, literally; attacks from three of that race, all of them very, very ticked off already.”

Silence for a moment, then Eret sighed and rolled his eyes, gesturing to me with his knife. “So there is a third around here somewhere; very well, explain yourself.”

I nodded. “Aside from your breaking modern Viking law, here’s a good reason to jail you: these are also the last two representations of this species”-

“Two? You just said that there were three left,” Eret interrupted. I frowned, eyes turning colors and quieting him again. “Yes,” I quipped, “and I will get to that tidbit in a moment. These being the last two, Toothless and Amethyst are the last of a unique sentient race.” I fixed the trapper with a very serious look. “Dragons, despite the stories I’m sure you’ve been fed all your life, quote-unquote ‘finest dragon trapper alive’, are as intelligent and free-thinking as we are. They have a language, their own customs, and morals.”

Expectedly, Eret cracked up. “Oh, you have got to be joking!” he guffawed. “After all they’ve done to so many”-

“And that’s the same argument we’re faced with by anyone too ignorant to shut up for a minute and listen!” I snapped, cutting him off. A single electric spark ran off my hand and up the staff, making sure everyone was caught off guard enough at the sight for me to continue (Eret’s crew was inching toward their weapons, and I had no intent to let them use them).

“How war-like are people, hmm? How often do we go out to kill each other over such things as stupid and useless as a petty disagreement or griping over spilled wine? Dragons, for all the myths surrounding them, almost never partake in such quarrels. They only ever attack each other, or us, if they have good reason to. That _alone_ makes me think that the dragon you tied up there is a whole lot smarter than you!”

“Now hold on a minute,” Eret snapped, walking up to me with a strong grip on his blade. He stopped short when my staff swung pointedly toward his neck.

“Hazim shel Halailah,” I growled.

“What?”

“Hebrew for Night’s Fury, and your second warning. Would you like me to lose my temper now and let us all have our way with you and your crew? I assure you it wouldn’t be pleasant for your side, despite there being only the four of us and the one you’ve already tied up.” I glanced over at Toothless. “Introduce yourself before he starts mouthing off again.”

Toothless looked at me oddly, before catching my meaning. He nodded, walking over to stand between Hiccup and I, and looked Eret straight in the eyes.

“As they already told you, my name is Toothless,” the Night Fury spoke, every word to the point and laced with derision. “Every dragon within 50 miles of here answers to me directly,” he continued, making the trapper go slack-jawed. “If you have any sensibility you will release Amethyst or I will personally fly you over to Dragon Island myself and leave the self-proclaimed ‘finest dragon trapper alive’ to the claws of those dragons who are going to be far less civil than we will.” His scales lit up to maximum luminosity, causing Eret to take a couple of steps back again.

“Like I said Eret, they’ve got their legends for a reason,” I drawled, watching the Sami work over what we’d just hit him with. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw that we’d stunned the rest of the crew into immobility as well. Eret glanced slowly at Amethyst, then back at us, then back toward the Descendant.

After a minute or two of no real action for the better, Toothless scowled. “Alright then, I’m tired of waiting; I’ll do it myself.” He leapt forward toward Amethyst, raising his claws to tear off her bindings.

Eret reacted immediately, his knife-wielding hand swinging forward toward Toothless as his crew jumped back into action. Eret’s weapon didn’t get far though, before a miniature Night Fury fireball blew it out of his hand, half-melted and useless. He froze again, as did his crew, and traced the blast’s trajectory back to me.

“What-where did…what was that from?” he stuttered. I scowled, opening my hand and letting my staff dematerialize much to our visitors’ shock again.

“I told you,” I hissed, “let her go or you will face three Night Furies: Toothless, Amethyst, and me.”

Scales swept across my face and down my neck, the trademark black wings and tail stretching out and lashing behind me, my eyes glowing green to match Toothless’, and my own vertebral scales beginning to glow, a dangerous shimmering red much like the colors of the other two.

While Eret stood speechless and wide-eyed (muttering something about “stories were actually true”), his short first mate finally lost it. Drawing a dagger and letting out a frenzied yell, he charged me, starting a chain reaction of the rest of the crew leaping forward either toward me or Toothless.

I spun, sweeping my tail under the little man, and then leapt forward myself to pin him under a single paw in one deft move. Toothless did the same to a pair of men coming after him as Hiccup drew Inferno into his hands and lit the blade, intimidating the rest to a halt as they looked on at yet another surprise we had in store.

“You’ve never faced off with a Night Fury before, have you?” I mused. With the wind knocked out of him, all the first mate could do was shake his head as he tried weakly to push my paw off his chest.

I snorted in response. “They’re the most feared dragon alive, until I turn into one. Then I am.” I snapped my head up to glare at Eret again. “I’ve given you two warnings already, and they extend to each and every one of your crewmates. This will be your third and last: Hazim shel Halailah, if you do not release my half-sister. There probably won’t be much of that entire ship left if you wait any longer, and you won’t be reimbursed.”

I grinned as Eret, who was just starting to work out what had happened in the whirlwind he just been face with, was thrown into surprise once more at my statement. “Sister?!”

“Yes, in a manner of speaking she’s my sister. Fully dragon, but semi-related to me. All the more reason to release her,” I mused, “as she likely has a gift inherited from me that neither of us is aware of. Do you want to take that chance? After all, the shape-shifting isn’t all I’ve got left.”

Something finally got through not only to Eret, but his crew as well, as they dropped the ropes and weapons they held like they were on fire, and let Toothless move once again to Amethyst’s side. He slashed the ropes, rendering them forever useless, and pulled the makeshift muzzle off with ease, allowing Amethyst to work her jaws again and stand. She glanced at Eret, who cringed, and then looked at me.

“So, what do I get to do with him?” she asked lightly, feigning innocence but parlaying everything she intended in the same tone. I shook my head and released the man I stood on, before morphing back halfway. “Him? Nothing. But you see all the trapping mechanisms they’ve still got laying around here?” I gestured to the nets and launchers and various other equipment setting around on the sand, and nodded toward the ones on the ship.

Amethyst didn’t hesitate. Lifting off the ground, she fired point-blank at the contraptions and ripped them apart, each shot more heated than the last until she, too, began fluorescing. Like her name, her scales shone a mesmerizing violet.

Eret and his crew scrambled to try and salvage what they could, only for Toothless and I to swing our tails around and block them from reaching the traps. Eret winced as another blast took out the first of the ones on the ship, before glaring at me. I smirked and looked up at Amethyst again.

That was when I saw it: a spark of electric current, arcing between Amethyst’s spinal crests. Before I could scrutinize further however, she’d taken out the last of the contraptions on the ship and settled to the ground again.

“My equipment!” Eret yelled, looking around at a loss as to what to do with the smoking shards on the sand. “What’ve you done?! Viggo’s going to kill me!”

“Viggo? Who’s that?” Hiccup queried, lowering his swords and extinguishing Inferno. Eret whipped around to him, face red as his hands clenched and unclenched.

“The one person who I might have called better than me,” he snapped. “The one person nobody tangles with up here because he’s always a step ahead! This was my own mission, but I also had a payment to make and you just sure enough made it certain that I can’t do that!”

“No, you made certain of it by coming here and trying to steal Amethyst,” I snapped back. “And actually, I think I spoke too soon.” My eyes narrowed as I looked slyly at Eret, before glancing at the female Night Fury. “Clearly the crew here needs some long-overdue re-education. So, Amethyst?”

She perked up, looking at me and eager to hear what I would say, while Eret paled and cringed again. “Tell you what,” I drawled, “you can carry him back to Berk. Make sure he gets there alive is all I ask. And his crew can meet him there if they want him back.”

Eret immediately turned and bolted, but nothing outruns a Night Fury. Amethyst quickly caught him and took off, the trapper screaming the whole way.

I looked at Hiccup and Toothless, and drawled, “Shall we? Before she gets any more ideas?”

Toothless started laughing mischievously as Hiccup climbed on, and we took off as Eret’s crew scrambled to get the ship sailing for Berk.

* * *

“AAAHHHHH!!! Gods above, put me down!!”

“There’s only one God, and he’s not going to make me let you go.”

“Oh for the love of….I’m not having a religious argument with a dragon. Put me down!!”

“Not going to happen!”

“Let go of me!!”

Amethyst flared, slowing down to look down at her captive, who was struggling to remove her iron grip from his arms. “Alright tough guy, you want me to put you down?” she growled. “I’ll let go, right here, right now, or you can shut up until we get to the village.”

Eret finally took a moment to look down, and blanched. Even a fifteen-foot drop could kill a person if they landed wrong, but they were hovering at least two hundred feet above the floor of a rocky mountain valley; only a dragon survived a fall from heights like that. He immediately switched tactics, scrabbling to gain a grip on the dragon’s paws. “No! No, never mind, don’t put me down!” he squeaked.

Amethyst snorted, and took off again, soaring up over the mountains and down toward Berk, aiming for the plaza. Immediately upon her appearance, other riders began gathering to find out what happened.

As they slowed to land, Amethyst unceremoniously dumped Eret, taking satisfaction from the way he hit dirt and rolled, yelping and coughing before slowly trying to stand up again as she set down. “Now,” she growled, “about a proper punishment.” She stalked forward, wings hooded as Eret fell backward again and scrambled to move away from the angry Night Fury.

“Well now, what do we have here? Trappers on Berk?” a new voice cut in from above, making Eret twist around before shielding his eyes from the gusts of wind that rushed in from the wings of the huge dragon. As it landed, he recognized it and paled further, knowing exactly who he was dealing with.

Valka slid expertly off Cloudjumper’s back and walked up to Eret, her new staff in hand as she stood over him. “Oh, I remember you,” she toned, lifting his head up with her staff. “Greatest trapper alive finally met another dragon he couldn’t handle? Or three, I’m guessing?”

Eret groaned. “I’m going to hear that thrown back at me all day,” he groused. “What, are you the Night Fury rider’s mother or something now?”

“In fact I am.”

The Sami face-palmed, knowing he was screwed. “The gods are laughing at me now, I know it.”

“There’s only one,” Valka mused, a knowing smirk growing on her face that grew wider when Eret glared at her for that comment; she was piecing together exactly what had happened on the north shore, and it was somewhat amusing, save for the fact that Amethyst was still seething nearby. “Though, I’ve met Odin and company and I’m sure they’d find it funny as well if they were here to see this. You’re certainly in a lot of trouble, and should be counting your blessings if you knew what my son and his friends are capable of.” Looking up, she nodded at Amethyst. “Stoick and I will deal with him from here, at least until Hiccup and Hawken show up again.”

Amethyst sat back, before her eyes narrowed and she readied to protest. “I mean it, Amethyst,” Valka warned, “as much as we might be entertained by your burning his britches off it’s not going to do any good.”

The Night Fury huffed in annoyance, before spreading her wings and taking off, heading for one of the lookout points above the village. Valka sighed, before turning to the befuddled Eret. “You’ve finally got what’s coming to you after all these years,” she toned. “Viggo know you’re here as well?”

“No, luckily for you,” Eret spat, only encouraging a chuckle out of Valka. “No,” she returned, “luckily for him as he wouldn’t get the softer treatment we’ll grant to you, right Stoick?”

“Never heard of the other’s name, but I think I’ve seen this one around before,” the chief said, walking up with Thornado at his side. “Though I’m guessing you’d probably know best concerning the trappers. What do you reckon we ought to do with him?”

Valka began to speak, before the whistling noise of a Night Fury returned, and they all looked up to see Hiccup and Toothless glide in for a landing, and Hawken drop out of the sky with Teshra still on his shoulder, sending dust rolling through the plaza. “They were there to see what happened; why don’t we let them decide?” she suggested.

Eret cringed at the look Hawken gave him, something akin to a whimper escaping his lips.

* * *

With Eret handed over for proper reprimand, Toothless had been let free by Hiccup, on the condition he found a way to clear the air between him and Amethyst. He found the female Night Fury sitting off on her own on the bluff above the village proper, gazing off across the ocean with an unreadable expression. There was clearly a mood hanging in the air around her; not even Teshra had come up to try and console her sister.

Despite all of the warning bells going off in his head, Toothless landed softly a ways behind her and slowly walked up to her side, sitting down. Silence reigned for a moment before he spoke.

<I wanted to say I’m sorry for how I reacted earlier today,> he said quietly. <In the end it’s my fault that you got dragged into this whole mess with Eret and company.>

Amethyst smiled faintly as she glanced his way. <Did Hawken tell you to come up and say sorry?> she inquired.

<No, he’s busy down at the arena chewing out the trappers; the rest finally sailed in as well.> Toothless chuckled at the thought before growing serious again. <Alright, so Hiccup did a little prodding, but I mean it, I’m sorry. I finally got it into my head that I was wrong, way wrong, not long after you and Teshra flew off, and when she came back to let us know that you…I…well…>

Now it was Amethyst’s turn to chuckle. <Oohhh, I see. You cared about what happened to me, didn’t you?> she teased, smirking.

Toothless immediately began stuttering. <Well, I, uh…now come on, I thought you were in danger, and since I drove you out there I felt like I was obligated to go and help…> he trailed off as Amethyst’s look turned deadpan and serious. A moment passed, the male taking in a deep breath before slowly letting it out, and then he looked at the ground, tail curling in on himself.

<Yeah, okay, so maybe I…I care a little,> he muttered quietly, clearly blushing under his dark scales. Glancing around, he continued sheepishly, <I don’t want to see you get hurt, and definitely not because of me. Not just because we’re the last two of our kind, but because I……I…> He looked up, and then glanced away again, embarrassed. <Never mind.>

<No, not never mind,> Amethyst replied softly, leaning over and nudging him. <It’s kind of endearing, actually.>

Toothless’ ears perked up slightly. <I’m not being embarrassing?>

<No worse than your regular self,> Amethyst teased again.

<Hey!> Toothless protested, sticking out his tongue. The female only chuckled.

<And honestly,> she continued, <I’m glad you came as well. I heard mention that you bolted as soon as Teshra finished telling you guys what had happened.> A smile graced her features again. <I might, just might, care to call you a little more than a friend as well.>

Toothless smiled at that, and they leaned together, nudging each other reassuringly. Amethyst pulled back shortly after however. <You tell anyone though and I’ll throw you from one end of Berk to the other, Alpha or not,> she warned half-jokingly.

<Well, same goes to you,> Toothless returned. <If Hiccup, Hawken or, heaven help us, Cami or the twins catch wind of that, then we’ll never hear the end of->

A quiet chuckle, followed by a rustling of leaves, caused both of them to jolt upward and turn to look at the bushes behind them. A flash of orange and black showed itself for just a moment, before it disappeared down the hill. Toothless glanced down into the village, and spotted Hiccup in the streets below, right where the tiger was headed.

<Oh, no.>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note: we've met an important character in this chapter, for many reasons. He didn't show up in the last book when I was actually fleshing out the Film 2 storyline into this universe, but her had to show up eventually...it'll become obvious why later.  
> And, the chapter's title was given away in the writing, but still, who really caught it? Also for those who have seen the third film already, you might have noticed a little something going on with Amethyst. Originally I wrote this story with her just having a special trait, and it was written several years before the third film came out, but seems like the DreamWorks crew decided to give Toothless somewhat the same trait...


	10. How to Help a Quiet Cobra

_“We all tried to help him out, but shyness is something that nobody grows out of in a day. Over time he got better, especially with Spitfire around (Hawken was definitely right about those two), but Kingsley still remained rather aloof and on his own the rest of the time. I had decided early on I wanted to see him become more confident myself, and when he finally started showing interest in actually going out and exploring places, we all thought we were finally getting somewhere. Too bad there are trigger-happies no matter where you go nowadays…”_

_~Toothless_

_Electricity raced off my arms and tail, swirling in a vortex of abject destruction around me, but I could only reach out so far._

_The army swarmed across the land, and I could see dragons and Vikings alike being cut down one by one with weapons that couldn’t exist, but did. A javelin sliced the air in front of me and flew by out of my reach, impaling Barfbelch off to my right before I could react further. Turning the other direction I saw Hiccup and Toothless carving their way through the swarm, nothing matching their ferocity. But, they were too preoccupied to see the archers beyond them._

_“Hiccup, Toothless, get out of the way!” I screamed, leaping up and trying to block the wave of arrows that suddenly filled the air, each one lined with poison not even I could counter. Behind me, however, that left Astrid and Camicazi open and vulnerable, their dragons already missing. Two soldiers, taking their chance, rushed in and drove their blades through the two warrioresses, ending them and drawing not only my ire but also Hiccup and Toothless’ full attention._

_A second wave of arrows came down, and with all of us frozen at the sight before us, they all found their marks. Pain seared my side, and a Night Fury’s scream shook the air, followed by his rider’s._

_“HICCUP!!”_

* * *

I jolted awake, heart pounding and sweat racing off my forehead. Amethyst was there immediately, like always, curling around me and propping me up as my breathing began to slow down. As soon as she saw the tears run down my face, she knew.

“Another nightmare?” she asked quietly. I swallowed hard and nodded. Amethyst nudged he head against me reassuringly. “Hey, it wasn’t real,” she soothed. “You’re still here and everyone’s fine.”

“Doesn’t mean that the images will leave my head though,” I muttered. Amethyst sighed, and moved to look me in the eyes.

“The first time you woke up to us being there, it was in the middle of a night terror,” she said. “They’ve happened every couple weeks since then. Do you know what causes it? That might help us figure out how to stop them.”

I sighed, and nodded. “War, Amethyst. You go through it and there are two options: you die, or you win, but you’ll never be the same again.” I fixed her with a serious look. “I sincerely hope you all never go through it, because no matter how strong you are, or think you are, no matter how optimistic a soul, it breaks you somewhere.” I glanced toward my door, thoughts drifting along. “Hiccup is still sarcastic and a joker about everything, still inventive like he always was, but even he changed, became harder and less forgiving of the world.”

Amethyst looked down, knowing she’d already seen that in him. “Well, how about we try to focus on something a little less saddening, okay?” she suggested. “Hey, we’ve still got some leftover fireworks somewhere, or Kingsley and Feren were expressing interest in going someplace new for today, right guys?”

The two mentioned voiced their agreement, everyone awake from my sudden start earlier, and I smiled and nodded at the sound. Amethyst was right: no use focusing on bad dreams, especially since that’s all they were. The Fourth of July had been just over a week before and all the fanfare of celebrating that with characters like Sasha and Camicazi made it an interesting, and quite fun, night; why not focus on that?

Surprisingly, we did end up having fireworks left over, likely because I’d really gone all out in getting fun stuff for that night (and my parents still were clueless about where all the extra money that I had was coming from), but I knew that Kingsley, despite having an introverted demeanor worse than mine, had been wanting to get out of the house and somewhere other than Berk for some time, so I decided that it was probably time to grant that wish; I hoped that it would help him open up a little too.

* * *

“Okay, so if it’s just you three this trip will be easier, but just to keep things safe we’re going to a park that’s a little less frequented. You all promise to behave?”

“Yes Hawken.”

I smiled at the unanimous answer, though the last question was mostly directed toward Sasha; the other two I wasn’t worried about goofing off too much. “Alright, good. Sasha, Feren, a smaller size would be a lot easier to carry if you don’t mind; Kingsley, you’re fine as you are, just hold on tight.” I knelt down as the two cats leapt up onto my back, finding decent positions between the crests where they could brace themselves, and Kingsley wrapped himself securely around my neck and shoulders. Once more I glanced back just to make sure that they were all secure, and then decided to double check on something else.

“You sure nobody else wanted to come?”

“Zipeau’s well-entrenched in his work on that ‘memory converter’ thing or whatever it is you guys came up with,” Feren explained. “Nara’s with Holly again, big surprise there, and Amethyst and Embron are tagging along with them; I think they mentioned more practice. Oh, and Teshra and Twintail are being enlisted to help Hiccup out today while we’re gone.”

I nodded. “Very well then; good they’re being kept busy too, especially Teshra. Off we go!” I opened my wings and took to the air, my back yard quickly falling away as I soared up and over the western end of the city.

* * *

“Hiccup! Double set up pronto! George, grab me the-oh, ye already did that, thank you very much.”

Hiccup groaned as he pulled a sheet of padded leather out and laid it over the fitting model. George, Gobber’s Boneknapper, had decided to stop by the island again and lend a paw, and was peering in at him through the open window nearby.

<Trouble, Hiccup?> the large dragon queried, cocking his head somewhat amusingly. Hiccup smirked. “No, not really, just…ugh, today is packed end to end! I don’t think we’ve seen this many requests in one day since we last saw a battle here; I find it hard to believe it was just coincidence that Hawken took today of all days to joyride wherever.”

<You have those two to help though, don’t you?> George asked, gesturing to the Terror lugging a wrench over from the tool wall and the semi-miniaturized Zippleback helping to straighten the leather of the soon-to-be saddle. <It could be worse.>

Hiccup shrugged as he pulled the leather tight. “Yeah, but even then what we’ve got to do is going to take until late afternoon I’m sure. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m glad you guys came in to help,” he placated as Teshra sent him a deadpan look.

“Then git te workin’ and stop yammering over there,” Gobber griped from the next room, pounding out a rod for the saddlebar. “Ye’ll be finished quite a bit sooner if ye stay focused, an’ if Ember and her dragon show up like they’re supposed te, all the better.”

“Yeah, yeah, we hear you Gobber,” came a terse reply outside. Orhaganuz landed abruptly just outside the forge entrance, the Shadowracer kneeling down so that his rider could dismount easily, the fiery-haired woman giving the older smith a look as she walked inside briskly. “Spitfire was relaying patrol info so we were held up a bit.”

Ember turned the corner and hung her vest by the door, before walking over to the Mysteel stores and pulling out a short sheet of the material. “So, what’s the worklist today?” she asked, glancing at Hiccup, who started off his reply with a huff.

“Two Zippleback saddles, one for a Nightmare, three Gronckles, a pair of axes for Ruff and Tuff’s mother Brunhilda, my father’s ceremonial sword repair, and of course continuing work on the wedding decorations and ceremonial gifts,” he prattled off. Ember grimaced at the workload, before sauntering over to the anvil that Gobber was not presently occupying and placing the Mysteel sheet on it.

“Well, then, let’s get started,” she said lightly, heating up her hands and placing them firmly over the metal.

* * *

“…hero, save me now!”

“I need a hero, save me now!”

“A hero, to save my life!”

“A hero’ll save me just in tiiime!!”

Four voices carried together, singing along full blast to the lyrics playing in the air around us as I glided down toward the field below.

“I need a hero!” “Who’s gonna fight for what’s right, who’s gonna help us survive!”

“I need a hero!” “Who’s gonna fight for the weak, who’s gonna make them believe!”

“I need a hero!” “I need a hero!”

I’m sure to anyone who could have been watching it would have been a hilarious scene: a Night Fury, two big cats, and a cobra trying (and probably failing) to harmonize to Skillet. However, I’d picked the park below us for a reason: there really wasn’t anyone around to see us making fools of ourselves. As I set down in the long grass, I glanced at my companions, grinning as we all readied to belt out the last line. 3…2…1…

“A hero’s gonna save me JUST IN TIIIME!!!”

We all yelled it out, before bursting out laughing and settling down to relax, me turning off the MP3 for the time being. Feren, Sasha, and Kingsley all got off, and I casually morphed back, looking around with satisfaction.

There was an open meadow sweeping around us, with some forested patches not too far off for us to explore; the place was relatively large, so if anyone else did show up, we felt confident enough in being able to move out of sight and continue enjoying ourselves.

I glanced at the Descendants who’d come along, and smirked. “So, what first?” I queried. “A little exploring, game of tag, hide-and-seek? Frisbee?” The smirk turned into a grin as I materialized a bright plastic disk in my hand, holding it up.

“I vote Frisbee!” Sasha exclaimed, swelling up to full size and running out through the grass, bouncing in preparation.

“Alright,” I toned, “go long!” Backing up, I leaned back and threw the disc, sending it sailing perfectly. Sasha crouched, ready to grab it, and as it sailed by he leapt up, catching the disk with ease in his paw before landing somewhat clumsily. I crossed my arms, and grinned. “Okay, so now how are you going to throw it back? Last time I checked tigers don’t…”

I trailed off as Sasha stood up on his back legs, paws morphing slightly, and he turned and threw the Frisbee back with a laugh. Caught off guard, I barely reacted in time to catch it.

“You were saying Hawken?” the tiger leered, setting back down on all fours. “Found this out a few weeks ago; I’d bet Feren can do the same.”

We both looked over at the Macawnivore, who shrugged and held up his paw, the digits lengthening into what more resembled proper fingers. “Bet you I learned it before you did, Sasha,” he teased, grinning.

Sasha pouted. “Did not!”

I laughed. “Alright then, now we have a game! Hey Kingsley, heads up!”

The cobra popped up in surprise, before reaching up frantically with his tail to snag the disk.

* * *

A few hours passed, our day of fun and relaxation tiring all of us out, but as I and the two cats lay back in the grass, content to laze for a while, Kingsley still had it in him to explore the forest nearby. I agreed, so long as he didn’t go too far and stayed within hearing range (couldn’t say within view; it was hard enough tracking him even at full size in the open grass). With how introverted and unadventurous he had tended to be, I was glad Kingsley was at least moving around a little more openly now, and smiled as I turned to look at Feren.

“So, what’s new today?”

The Macawnivore lifted his head to look at me, seemingly unamused. “Nothing much you don’t already know about.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps, but despite everything, you still interact with Embron and Twintail more than I can manage. Plus I heard Stoick and Valka were thinking about recruiting you for some diplomatic business around the village.”

Feren snorted. “They already have. Yeah, my level-headed attitude unfortunately makes me really good at solving heated arguments. All the better that unlike the chief and his wife I can speak Dragonese too, it seems; Toothless and Cloudjumper have had their paws full on a few days.”

At the mention of the Night Fury, I smiled again. “And how is the Alpha holding up? Anyone actually seen much of him or Amethyst recently?”

We all chuckled, despite the fact that we knew Toothless was mostly kept busy helping Hiccup as much as he had to watch the dragons, much less spend time with Amethyst.

Sasha rolled over so he could face us better, a grin on his face. “Barfbelch and Fireworm have been helping keep him busy most days,” he said. “Those two are nearly as bad as their riders; still can’t top the twins themselves though. But, I’ve seen our two Night Furies on the bluff a few times in the past week together, thinking nobody was watching.”

“Well, after that issue with Eret it’s no secret they like each other,” I noted, “and not just because you decided to be an eavesdropper. But there’s”-

My words lodged in my throat when a gunshot rang out nearby, and we all heard Kingsley somewhere in the trees scream out in Dragonese. Then he yelled my name in a panic.

The three of us all bolted upright, and I glanced toward the closest road. A somewhat battered looking, old brown pickup sat by the meadow that definitely hadn’t been parked there before.

I didn’t waste a second, leaping to my feet and morphing Speed Stinger, racing into the trees, Feren and Sasha running after me. Not far beyond the treeline I found Kingsley, shrinking down and trying to hide under a bush behind one of the larger poplars. Very close nearby, looking somewhat in disbelief but all the more angry, was a moderately well-dressed middle-aged man, topped with short graying hair and a baseball cap. In his hands was a rifle, still smoking slightly from having been very recently used.

When I stopped running and demorphed, he immediately spotted me and staggered in surprise. “What the –where did you come from?!” he sputtered. Before I could answer, he recovered from his shock and shook his head. “Never mind, move away! There’s a snake under that bush, a cobra!”

“I know,” I growled. “And what the heck do you think you’re doing, shooting at him?!”

“It’s a cobra, everyone knows they’re dangerous and they certainly don’t belong here!” he deadpanned, as if this were obvious to anyone. “I’m doing everyone a favor; police were called, but I’m not going to let it run loose to bite some –what are you doing?!”

I’d knelt down next to Kingsley and was holding out my arm, letting him crawl up and around my neck, where we were both sure the blast-happy guy wouldn’t attempt a pot shot at him. Then I fixed the rifle owner with a glare.

“I’d be careful assuming what belongs where,” I snapped. “First off, not only should you not try to kill snakes but using a gun is about the worst idea to go about it. It’s clear you don’t like snakes, so I won’t waste too much time ranting about the sheer stupidity of your actions here, but I will warn you: try to shoot my brother again an you may not live to tell about it. Family’s kind of important to me.” Kingsley started hissing in agreement, but a glare from me silenced him; I wasn’t happy with the cobra either.

Sasha and Feren had managed to catch up to us by now, flanking me and giving another surprise to the unwanted visitor as his confusion grew. “What –a tiger? You running a circus out here? The heck is that creature?” he exclaimed, waving the barrel of his gun toward Feren. “And I wasn’t shooting at any person, just the snake, so what’re you talking about your”-

“The snake is my brother, same as the two cats next to me here,” I snapped. “Yeah, it’s a long story and I don’t feel like going into the whole thing right now so don’t make me. Do you know who I am?”

He shook his head, attention beginning to be divided between us and an approaching siren. I nodded. “Thought as much. Seems the police unit you called is about here; I’ll let them explain. They know me well enough. Kingsley, full size.”

The cobra glanced up at me, confused. <But he-he tried to shoot me, won’t that make things->

My brows furrowed and I cut him off. “Half this issue is you being too shy to defend yourself,” I explained. “Full size, and you’re going to help clear things up when the officers get here.”

“Are you ill?” the man queried, seeing me talking to a snake he hadn’t been able to understand and looking worried for an entirely different reason now. I looked at him, then gestured to Kingsley. “Ask the cobra.”

One normal police car and one animal control vehicle were now pulled up alongside the meadow near the truck, and two officers were running our way, one with a noose and a bag in his hands. Kingsley, meanwhile, reluctantly slid off my shoulders and began increasing in size, until he stood at full height: 30 feet long, head held some eight feet off the ground.

The sight of a size-changing snake drove the guy with the gun to back up rapidly, and the two cops who had come out halted quite a ways short of us as they took in the sight.

“What the –Hawken? What on earth is going on out here?” one officer asked.

Gun-guy immediately looked at him incredulously. “Wait, you actually know him?”

“More or less,” the cop replied. “He’s the dragon man that’s been on the news every now and then.” He turned to me again. “We received a call saying there was a venomous snake issue out here, and we come out to find you, a cobra that I’m certain shouldn’t be that big, and several other exotics; would somebody care to explain what this circus is doing here?”

I looked to Kingsley, and gestured to the small audience we had; he was the focus of the problem, he needed to help explain. He winced, then sighed before speaking up with a stutter.

“W-we were trying to enjoy a day in the park,” he mumbled, drawing shock from the three men.

“It talks!” gun-guy exclaimed, drawing a scowl from Kingsley, who hooded slightly. “Y-yes, did you miss the part where Hawken called me brother?” he deadpanned, tongue flickering. The guy took another step back, before shaking his head and turning to leave.

“Alright, this is ridiculous,” he muttered. “I’m clearly seeing things; I’ll let the cops deal with you lunatics. I’m out of here!”

“Not so fast,” one of the officers quipped, making the man halt. “We’re going to have a talk with you too after this is done; there are also laws about operating firearms in public spaces such as this.”

“Yeah, was wondering about that,” I mused, drawing their attention again. “I was going to ask if people regularly ran around here with rifles; he almost killed Kingsley here.”

“There is a hunting range not far from here,” the second officer replied this time. “But that’s an issue for later, and the matter at hand needs to be cleared up: you have a venomous snake, granted a talking one but a cobra nonetheless, a tiger, and a…uh…”

“Macawnivore,” I supplied. He looked at me oddly, before continuing. “Okay, well, animals like that require certain permits to own in this state and are not allowed to roam freely as they are here; you can be arrested and fined for this you know.”

“No one owns us,” Kingsley retorted flatly; a raised eyebrow was his only reply.

I gave a loud sigh, and leaned my head into my palm. “Okay, look: one, no I don’t have a permit for owning dangerous animals because I do not own any dangerous animals as outlined in the books. Two, this situation does not qualify because if you haven’t caught it already these are not “normal” animals as should be evident by Kingsley talking, Feren being a species that doesn’t exactly exist on this planet normally, etc. Three…well, you can try and take them but I can assure you that wouldn’t end well,” I warned. “After all, kind of hard to catch something that can change its size at will.”

Both officers glanced at each other, clearly out of their element. “Not sure we can accept that answer,” the first said slowly. “Yes this is a bit of an extenuating circumstance, but the legislation is there in place for”-

“Does the legislation cover semi-sibling sentient creatures who are perfectly capable of reasoning and could even function in a classic human society if given opportunity?” Feren interrupted, stepping forward with his tail lashing and nodding up to his reptilian brother before facing off with the officers and pickup driver. “Like Hawken said, this isn’t exactly an occurrence you’re going to be able to recreate or classify with anything on the books. Another brother of ours has done some extensive reading on the local legal systems and I’ve gleaned quite a bit; I could argue all day, want to say more?”

Silence. When no reply came forthwith, I nodded, bending down and morphing Night Fury once more. The others took the hint and shrank down to travel size. “Well, I think our day at the park is quite plainly over,” I announced, kneeling so Sasha and Feren could climb on, Kingsley winding around my neck once more. “So, go ahead and deal with gun-guy there and if you two still have issue with this, well…the police department knows where I live. Ledra-ut!”

A sweep of the wings, and I left the dumbfounded trio behind. Unfortunately, I was not in a great mood now, and glanced down at Kingsley.

“First thing we’re going to do is work on your self-defense and social skills some more,” I muttered. The cobra only drooped in response.

* * *

Hiccup didn’t even have to look up to tell who’d landed outside the forge. A pair of Nadders touched down lightly, followed by a pair of Night Furies and a Nightmare. The two riders with them jumped off the Nadders’ backs and sauntered into the smithy, hard breathing from some extensive exercise evident.

Hiccup smirked. “Afternoon ladies,” he called as he tightened down a saddle strap. “Training go well today?” Turning to face them, his eyes widened. “Jeez Holly, when did you start dressing as a walking arsenal? I thought that was just Camicazi’s fashion style.”

The teen grinned. “Since a while now,” she replied coolly. “Been working with throwing implements for months.”

“And she’s actually getting really good,” Astrid added. “Scary good.” She walked over to Hiccup and pulled him away from the in-progress saddle for an impromptu kiss, ignoring Holly’s gagging noises.

After a short time however, Ember’s voice finally grabbed their attention: “If you two are done getting to know each other again, Hiccup: we still have a saddle to finish,” the redhead called. The pair quickly separated, blushing bright red at the snort of amusement that came from Holly’s direction at their getting called out by Ember.

Astrid glanced over at the saddle Hiccup was currently working on to try and change the subject, ducking out of the way as Ember threw over a metal fitting, which Hiccup caught deftly and began weaving into the contraption. “So, who’s this for?” she asked.

“You know that Nightmare down at the Svenson house?” Hiccup replied. “Finally got around to choosing one of the kids in the family as his rider.” He grunted as he clamped a piece in place, before looking over his shoulder to where Holly was, unsurprisingly, admiring the various sharp objects on the far wall near Gobber’s workspace. “You here for something Holly, or just visiting with Astrid?”

“Mostly the latter,” the teen replied. She nodded to Orha as the Shadowracer stuck his head in from where he was helping Gobber, “Hey Orha, what’s up? And actually, since our training is over, Nara, Embron and I are probably just going to be heading home. But before I forget, thanks for the saddle!”

Hiccup smiled. “Yeah, you’re welcome. Besides, Hawken and your mother would not have been happy if you’d continued to ride bareback.”

“Like I would’ve stopped though,” Holly retorted. “Nara keeps me safe enough. Anyway, see you around!”

The teen turned on her heels and jogged back out to her spiky companion, climbing on with already practiced ease, and the two took off followed by Embron. As they faded from view, the distant sounds of some new debate between them reached the forge, causing the occupants to shake their heads in amusement.

“Even I can’t get a handle on that girl,” Teshra commented from where she was perched by the Mysteel sheets. “No clue how Hawken or his parents have withstood her for thirteen years already.”

“The magic of family bonds,” Hiccup replied. “They can withstand anything, even Holly’s eccentricity.” Snickers echoed around the forge.

Shortly thereafter, another pair of wings left the vicinity and Toothless walked in. “Amethyst heading up to the bluff again?” Twintail asked the Night Fury as he stepped by, and Toothless nodded. “Yeah, probably.” He slunk around the saddle in progress and, saying hello to George over at the window, settled down in the corner.

“So, Toothless,” Hiccup began, walking over to his desk and rummaging through a stack of papers, “you enjoy your ‘morning off’ with Holly and company?”

“Until she nailed me in the face with a fake Shuriken,” he huffed. “Sometimes I wonder how Hawken stays sane around that sister of his.”

“Same way I stay sane around you,” Hiccup teased. Astrid chuckled, looking over at the black dragon and noting his glare.

“Hey, at least she’s not nuts or sadistic enough to use real weapons on you, right?” she appeased.

“Not sure I would necessarily put it past her depending on the weapon. Gives even Cami a run for her money.”

“Okay, so she won’t use anything sharp at least, just blunt objects.” Chuckles ran through the group, before they all fell silently into the rhythm of the forge, Astrid helping her boyfriend with the heavier pieces of the saddle as Toothless looked on.

Hiccup caught his dragon glancing out the door occasionally however, deep in thought, and a grin formed as he deduced what, or more accurately who, Toothless was thinking about. When he was sure the dragon wasn’t looking, he pulled out the flight apparatus and discreetly strapped it on, before venturing his first question.

“So Toothless, you and Amethyst getting along alright?” he queried innocently. The dragon’s eyes snapped over to him, wide at first but then narrowing suspiciously.

“Yeah, why? She’s a good friend.”

“Just a friend?”

Toothless frowned, trying to ignore Teshra’s snickering across the room. <I swear, I am going to strangle Sasha one of these days,> he growled under his breath. Hiccup only laughed.

“Oh, come on, like it wasn’t obvious already, especially with how you took off when you heard she was in trouble. And you follow her around like a puppy!”

“Shut up!”

“What? It’s not a shameful thing to like a girl. Take me and Astrid for example.”

“Oh, don’t bring me into this,” Astrid warned, but a smirk was already playing on her lips as well.

Toothless snorted and stood up, tail twitching in agitation. “We’re just friends, nothing more,” he insisted.

“Despite the flashing neon signs that suggest otherwise,” Hiccup threw back. “Come on, you two tag along with each other on the most trivial errands, I’ve seen you steal away a bunch of times just to go talk to her on the bluff, everyone has caught a glimpse of how you two sidle up to each other on occasion too; heck, I’m half surprised you guys haven’t disappeared for a while to”-

“Okay, THAT’S IT!!” Toothless finally exploded. Astrid and Ember had already moved out of the way, knowing what was about to take place, and Twintail yelped in alarm as the Night Fury pounced after his rider.

Hiccup was already gone though, bolting out the door to Gobber’s loud protest (the smith wasn’t quite done with his partner for the day) and racing off to the side, darting among various houses. Toothless followed, skidding on the dirt before tearing through the village, everyone wisely leaping out of the way as they recognized the situation.

<Hiccup, take it back!> Toothless roared, speeding around the corner and spotting said Viking ducking down toward the docks, both of them running right past a clear view of the bluff above the village. The two of them garnered the attention of the Night Fury that had unknowingly sparked the chase, and she glided down above Toothless to find out what was up.

<So do I even want to ask what Hiccup did this time?> she queried. Toothless glanced briefly up at her, before focusing forward.

<Insinuations about you and me, need I explain further?> he snapped.

The female’s eyes spread wide, before narrowing. <Alright,> she growled, <he wants to play that game? I can play too.>

Hiccup glanced back behind him, and his grin died off when he saw Amethyst high up in the air after him now as well. Skidding around a supply shed, he soon came to the edge of the cliffs above the docks. Immediately he slowed to a halt at the edge, turning around to face the pair of Night Furies that also slowed in front of him, both glaring at him as Amethyst landed. Then his smile returned.

<Wipe that smirk off Hiccup,> Amethyst hissed. <It’s not like you have anywhere to go, and you of all people should know not to antagonize Night Furies.>

Hiccup’s grin only widened. “Oh come on now, you two know you make a wonderful couple!” he teased.

Toothless shrieked and leapt forward, intent on pinning Hiccup and then sitting on him until he begged for mercy.

He didn’t expect his brother to leap off the cliff instead. Anger gave way rapidly to fear as he leaned forward, yelling <HICCUP!!>

Only a second later, the anger began to return full force as the Myscale wings sprouted and caught Hiccup’s falling form, the artificial appendages working under their own power to propel the young man away from the cliff and toward the far side of Berk.

Toothless gave a sidelong glance to Amethyst. <And yet you wondered why I didn’t want him learning how to use those,> he drawled.

Amethyst snorted, brushing off the backhanded remark before taking to the air after Hiccup. Toothless was not far behind. Neither of them thought they’d have issue catching their quarry after all; the re-sparked debate about the wings could be saved for later, after Hiccup had received his punishment.

Hiccup had been wise in designing the wings after Toothless though. By the time the dragons had taken off he’d already reached the outskirts of the forest, skimming above the trees and weaving between the tallest ones, but soon enough the Night Furies were hot on his tail again.

<Hiccup, the longer you drag this out, the longer our revenge will last!> Toothless warned. <I’ll be lenient if you let it go and apologize now!> The dragon powered forward, stretching out with his claws to try and snag Hiccup’s leg. Hiccup glanced backward, eyes widening, before he looked around below him and suddenly folded the wings.

Toothless yelped in surprise, shooting past, before he and Amethyst dove down after Hiccup, the Viking’s fake wings snapping out briefly to slow his descent before he landed clumsily and dashed through the trees. Toothless landed a moment later and followed after, Amethyst taking another route to try and cut Hiccup off.

Both groaned in frustration when Hiccup reached the western edge of the cove however, and disappeared through the portal to Hawken’s home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the awkward chapters that still pops up here and there...sigh, oh well. Not too long before fun begins though.


	11. Temporary Not-so-Respite

When I landed back at home, I was expecting to be able to drop off the others and take off for a while to clear my head. Instead I showed up just in time to watch Hiccup come tearing through the portal, full flight suit on and everything. He spotted me immediately and came racing over.

“Pardon my sudden intrusion,” he apologized, “but Toothless and Amethyst are both on my tail and I need to get out of here.”

I snorted, now not bothering quite yet to change back as the other three Descendants disembarked and headed for the house. “What, you make another crack about those two?” I queried. When he didn’t answer, I had to laugh; granted, for the most part I agreed with his sentiments (the two were clearly a pair now and would eventually have to accept that everyone saw it, otherwise the jokes would keep coming, but I found it somewhat ironic: most dragons were quite open as one would expect other animals to be about the circle of life, including courtships and mating, but Toothless had apparently picked up the human tendency to be bashful about such things, and Amethyst...well, she was related to me) but Hiccup was toeing the line.

“Well, when are you going to learn?” I prodded. “And you know Amethyst may just come through that portal any minute now, seeing as how she lives here?”

Hiccup fidgeted. “Think we can go elsewhere then?”

“Not sure. I’ve had a rough day and I kind of want to see what happens if I let them have their way.”

“Hawken!!”

I laughed and crouched down. “Alright, alright, get on. Like I said, we had a rocky end to our outing a little while ago, so I could use a clearing of the head too. Want to head to town?”

He shrugged as he placed himself carefully over my shoulders; after all, I did not have a saddle. “Sure, why not? Odd stares at the outfit are better than getting sat on by Toothless again.”

As my wings powered us both upward, I burst out laughing at that image. “Again? What happened the first time?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Hiccup muttered, causing me to crack up even more. “Oh, come on, quit laughing! He weighs more than he looks and knows it!”

“Well, perhaps you can escape that fate by dropping the joking about him and Amethyst being lovebirds.”

“It’s true! And they’re going to have to get used to it otherwise the rest of the village will eventually catch on, and they can’t sit on everyone, or strangle them like Toothless wants to do to Sasha.”

“Hiccup…”

“And why is it them out of all the dragons that are that awkward around each other? I mean any other village resident and they’d be happy to talk at length about their last trip to the nesting island and all that happened there.”

“ _Hiccup_ ….”

“Not to mention any other topic and Toothless would banter along right back to me, but one word about the second Night Fury and”-

“Hiccup!”

He finally stopped rambling and looked down at me. “What?”

“You’re familiar with dragon anatomy?”

“Yes, why?”

“So you know what a crop is, yes?”

He looked at me strangely, starting to get uncomfortable with where this conversation was leading. “Yes, I know what that is, what about it?”

“You keep antagonizing those two, and Toothless may very well figure out eventually that he can eat you without killing you in the process. Brothers are weird, dragons even more so, so I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“….”

“….”

“Don’t you dare _ever_ tell him that.”

* * *

We spent a little while up in the air, catching thermals to glide above the city as we talked; after my warning Hiccup had quickly abandoned the subject of Toothless and Amethyst (as I knew he would), but the thought stayed in my mind anyway; those two were getting close, and no one, not even themselves, could deny it.

Eventually however, we decided to join the weekday bustle of the city below. My town was moderately sized, so even during slow afternoons the streets and sidewalks were full of people rushing around to do whatever they needed to do. Of course, a dragon coming in to land will slow down even the most hurried citizen in a place where said creatures don’t often frequent.

“Ever not find entertainment in the looks people give you?” Hiccup queried as I flared my wings and we touched down in the park, chuckling at the stares some of the visitors were in fact throwing our way.

“Well, I think it’s more than that at the moment,” I noted. “I look like Toothless right now and you…well…”

“Good point,” Hiccup agreed. “But if I get any requests for photo ops or an autograph we’re moving on,” he joked as he leapt off and I was finally able to stand up and demorph.

Where we stood was the very center of the downtown city, a small park just to the north of my university and surrounded by shops, restaurants, and a couple dozen places for entertainment of all sorts. My home is pretty average concerning populace and diversity, so unsurprisingly Hiccup and I drew a lot of attention as we headed off to saunter down the walkways in front of the shops, even without me being in dragon form. Hiccup of course had clothes looking nothing like what the average American wears what with his leather and Myscale riding outfit, and me, I was decked out in my custom-ordered black outfit, intricate designs etched along the edges of my sleeves and pant legs (okay, so I’d splurged a bit and gone to the village tailor for something at least a little less modern-looking, I’ll admit it, and I had something else already ordered as well).

“We look like a couple Renaissance festival brothers out for a stroll,” Hiccup chuckled lightheartedly, and I snickered in response. “Yeah, not far from the truth though. So, where to first today?”

Hiccup looked around at the shops and pursed his lips, catching the looks of some of our fellow city-goers and sending them looks of his own, watching to his amusement as they quickly moved on afterward. “Uhhh….well, we’re still trying to plan out those wedding details, so maybe somewhere that has some decent decorations, but…eh, let’s just see what’s around today.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. The last ruby I cashed in put around fifteen grand into my account so…see anything good, let me know.”

* * *

I wasn’t kidding about the funds; the gemstones Odin had gifted me had become very useful in several factors, and as a result, by the time Hiccup and I returned to the park we were hauling several bags or various decorative items along with a number of technological knick-knacks that Hiccup thought he and Zipeau would find useful or have fun with (or both, knowing them). I could not possibly identify any of them though.

We decided to take a sojourn from our two hours of perusing the downtown shops, setting the bags off to the side as we sat down on a park bench close to the restaurants in the area. The day was staying clear, with a slight breeze that threatened to make me doze off.

“I’ll never get used to the whiplash of traveling between here and Berk,” Hiccup commented eventually, snapping me out of my half-dozing state. “Two completely different worlds tied together, and I mean that in more than one way.”

I nodded. “Good thing is we all have learned to function in both now, so that makes it easier. I noticed you’ve caught onto the idea of computers, internet and such rather quickly.”

“And Zipeau’s been helping with that as well the last few weeks,” he agreed. “He’s not much for dealing with some of the software programs, though I doubt that’ll last long, but the actual technological side of things and navigating the web he’s really good at.”

“I’ve noticed. All the gadgets he’s begun building, and he fixed some of the car issues my dad was having no luck in identifying too.”

“No kidding.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You know,” I mused, “I was expecting Zipeau to turn out as just your average bookworm more than anything, and…well, okay so he did and Fishlegs has never been happier about having someone to talk to along those lines, but you and the Stenonychosaurus have been clicking together pretty well as inventors too.”

Hiccup nodded. “Speaking of which,” he queried, “he tell you how far along that converter thing is?”

“A moderate ways; it’ll be ready before the wedding,” I assured. “Mind you, I can already computer interface myself as it is, so we can show clips of our adventures either way, but this ought to make it easier to have third-person viewpoint instead of just from my eyes. Plus it should allow us to get images from your memories and from the rest of the gang as well.”

“Just make sure we get at least one embarrassing clip of Cami in there somewhere,” Hiccup said, smirking. “She’s had it a long time coming.”

A passing civilian distracted us for a moment, his odd looks in our direction earning dragon-eyed stares of my own (and causing Hiccup and I to both laugh out loud as he quickly hurried off), before we turned back to our own conversation.

“Anyway,” I began, “so when do you”-

“Hold on a minute,” Hiccup interrupted, holding up his hand and looking around, “do you hear that?”

I quieted for a moment, and quickly nodded: there were shouts and several exclamations of pain emanating from the vicinity nearby, suggesting a fight. My ears lengthened and swiveled, pinpointing the source of the noise, and I turned to glance down the alley that ran behind the restaurants. Glancing at Hiccup, the expression he wore told me what he’d already decided to do.

I sighed and nodded, standing up. “Hmm, so much for a relaxing afternoon,” I muttered.

“What about our bags though?” Hiccup asked. I shrugged and waved my hand, all of our purchases taking on an electrical glow before dissipating from view. “Same place as my swords and staff,” I replied. “They’ll be safe.”

Hiccup raised an eyebrow as he watched the bags disappear. “Never going to get used to that,” he drawled, before turning toward the alley. We both hurried across the street and down the narrower space, checking down the side paths and around the buildings before eventually turning a corner and locating the problem.

It was a small group of young men, all of them dressed in some form of jeans and old t-shirts and looking more than a little ticked off. They were surrounding a young couple, a man in tan pants and a blue shirt that was sporting dusty brown hair and the woman a long-haired dirty blonde in a dangerously low-cut blouse and Capri shorts. The former was already sporting a couple bruises and a split lip from the conflict in progress.

“What on earth is going on back here?!” I snapped, immediately drawing everyone’s attention to us, the gang all wearing matching startled expressions before they morphed into scowls at the appearance of Hiccup and I.

“Beat it nerds, this ain’t your business,” one of them, sporting a backwards black cap and short blond hair, shot back as he took a step in our direction, hand curling into a fist.

I frowned. “I see someone in pain; that makes it my business. Want to explain what started this? What’d they do, huh? And choose your words wisely.”

The same guy who spoke up first took another step forward as he sneered. “I told you, it ain’t your business,” he quipped. “Now scram before you get the same treatment as our deal-breakers here!”

“I didn’t break the deal, you did!” the cornered guy griped, before cringing as another of the gang stepped forward and grabbed him by the shirt. I saw out of the corner of my eye Hiccup shake his head before he cleared his throat and spoke up.

“I see, some sort of less-than-lawful transaction that you were trying to pull off, otherwise you wouldn’t be hiding behind the Stuftburger here, and someone’s being a stiff, am I right?” He quirked an eyebrow, and continued. “Yeah, you’re all on really thin ice, so how about drop the issue now, everyone walk away from here, and avoid not only more needless injury but also all of you getting into serious trouble.” He spread his hands placatingly, his eyes showing the plead but also carrying in them a warning.

It wasn’t taken well. Hiccup had all the visible gadgets that the others knew he could grab, so the apparent leader turned and grabbed my shirt, dragging me over to the wall next to the apparent couple in trouble.

“I told you to scram, and you ignored me,” blondie snapped, pulling out a switchblade and pointing it toward Hiccup, who was flanked shortly after on both sides by the two guys not busy holding the previous captives, “so your friend here gets it first.” He held the blade up to my neck, turning it so that I had to look in Hiccup’s direction to avoid contact with the knife. Hiccup’s “bodyguards” produced a pair of knives as well, and lunged for him.

Things happened really quickly, and not at all in the manner the gang expected. Hiccup dropped to the ground and rolled backward (a move he’d picked up from Astrid), leaping to his feet and pulling out Inferno, the blade whipping out and erupting with fire. That alone caught his assailants off guard, but then they found themselves cornered against the wall when Hiccup cleaved through their knives like butter, rendering them useless.

“And I warned you to end this before you all dredged up more trouble than you’re already in,” Hiccup snarked, the blistering heat of his weapon causing the men he held it toward to sweat profusely.

The guy holding me had gone still in surprise when Hiccup rolled his way out of danger, but now he glanced at me again, mind turning as he processed this turn of events.

“I’m kind of amazed you don’t have a clue as to who I am at this point,” I drawled, watching his eyes darken as I continued. “On the other hand, you’re in the middle of a drug deal; that’s generally a sign of lack of sense.”

“Doesn’t matter, you’re dead now anyway,” he growled, and forced down his knife against my throat.

Shortly thereafter, I burst out laughing at his expression when absolutely nothing happened, and then I kept laughing as he dropped the knife and backed away as the layer of scales spread further across my neck. I pushed away from the wall and stepped forward as he stumbled backward, and my expression turned as I faced the pair holding onto the assailed couple.

“So, you want to let them go willingly, or do I have to drag you off?” I queried, noting out of the corner of my eye the leader attempt to take off whilst my attention was directed elsewhere. My tail whipped out and grabbed him, hoisting the flailing delinquent off the ground, and I held him up as a pointed example.

The two men I faced wisely dropped the switchblades they had earlier pulled out, and lifted their hands up. I nodded, and glanced over to Hiccup who in one sweep extinguished his blade and swept the hilt backward, knocking out the gang members he’d cornered, before standing next to me.

“I think this is a good lesson on one more reason _not_ to get involved in illegal dealings,” he toned, before stepping out of the way again and looking at me expectantly. I grinned, and twisted my tail, throwing the gang leader into the two remaining members, the whole group quickly and effectively rendered immobile. Then, I turned and held out my hand to the dumbfounded couple we’d “rescued.”

“W-what are you doing?” the woman stammered.

I frowned. “They wanted something from you, and I now really doubt it’s legal concerning your boyfriend’s comment earlier, so hand it over. Unless you would like to end up like them?” I jerked my thumb at the unconscious criminals.

They both shook their heads slowly, and the man fidgeted for a moment with his back pocket before pulling out a small, cotton bag. “Uh huh, as I had figured,” I muttered, grabbing the bag and pulling it open to peer inside: opium poppy seeds. My scowl deepened, and I closed the bag up before enclosing it in both my hands. “Watch closely,” I ordered, and set my palms alight. A few white-hot seconds later, and I opened my hands, the remaining ash now floating harmlessly to the ground.

“I’ll give you this warning just once,” I told the pair, who were still standing wide-eyed. “Drug dealing won’t get you anywhere good; get out of this life now while you can and find something worthwhile to do, since I know you’re capable of more than bartering heroine sources in trashy alleys.” I looked them over. “You both appear as if you’re moderately intelligent, so I’m sure you have marketable skills. I’m going to let you go this time around, but if I run across either of you in this sort of situation again, well,” I gestured to the unconscious quintet around us, “I’m sure you get the point: same place they’re going.”

Shortly thereafter, the pair had skedaddled, and the police had been notified to collect the now incapacitated lowlifes. Heading back out of the alley into an area far more appealing to the eye, I glanced over at Hiccup, letting out a sigh as we crossed the street into the park again.

“Well, our adventure in the city did not turn out quite the way I was hoping,” I griped, making Hiccup laugh; he was somewhat amused by the situation apparently.

“With the lives we live, is it really a surprise?” he toned lightly

I snorted. “Yeah, but still, is it too much to ask for _one_ normal outing?” I gave him a deadpan expression, but he only grinned.

“Perhaps one day. Well, not much to do here anymore now, so should we head home?”

That was an idea I could certainly agree with, and shortly thereafter we were in the air. When we eventually landed in my back yard again, we split up the tech stuff we’d acquired between Hiccup and Zipeau, and then hefted the rest of the bags through the portal.

Almost right away, we both heard, <Oh, there you are Hiccup! Back just in time I see.>

Said Viking froze, glancing toward the edge of the cove where a pair of Night Furies was sitting patiently, waiting for him. Hiccup barely had time to utter a whimpered, “Help!” before Toothless pounced.

<What, you didn’t think we’d just forget, did you?> the dragon teased, holding his quarry down with one paw. Hiccup flailed uselessly, trying to get away, before the Night Fury removed his paw, quickly turned around, and sat down.

“AAAaauuuggghhh!” Hiccup groaned, the wind knocked out of him, as he turned to send a glare at me as I stood back and laughed at his predicament (I had told him I kind of wanted to see what would happen, and I was still waiting for something to cheer me up; this did it). “Thanks a lot,” he gasped, before clawing at the ground to get away. “Toothless….please-erk!-please get off!”

Suddenly he froze again as he caught Toothless’ mischievous grin. “Oh, no, no, no no no don’t you dare even _think_ about-!”

PPFFFLLLLBBBBTTTT!!!!

“AUGH, TOOTHLESS!!”


	12. Unity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been hinted at since the start of this book, but time to make it official...we have a couple couples to hitch. Also, if you like songs that incorporate other languages, I do encourage checking out the one from which the intro lines were borrowed.

_One by one we are bound together_

_Separate yet whole, a community_

_Linked sons and daughters forever_

_A painted portrait of unity_

_Echad, one from many_

_Kulanu k’echad_

_All of us, as one together_

_Kulanu k’echad_

_-Echad: One From Many_

“So you’re absolutely sure that this isn’t going to somehow short-circuit while we’re using it? I’m the one who’s going to have my tail stuck inside the thing.”

“You’re also the one who can manipulate electricity, so a shock shouldn’t be an issue even if it were possible.”

“Still…”

“I assure you it’s safe. I already tested it out myself just to be sure.”

I sighed and closed my eyes, before opening them again and focusing on the little piece of machinery we’d plugged into the extra computer we’d bought, “we” being Zipeau and I. Gingerly I extended my tail, modifying the tip so that I could begin interfacing, and inserted it into the port.

Almost immediately the computer screen flashed, images racing by as memories of the past couple of years were sifted through not only by me but simultaneously by Zipeau’s converter. A smile etched its way across my face as I watched scenes I remembered as clearly as the day they happened.

“Ha ha! It works!” I exclaimed. “Okay, so let’s pick…this one, and see what we can do.” The computer images halted on a scene of the gang sitting around a fire in one of the guard towers, not unlike that night from my first encounter with Berk but a lot more relaxed, and some time after the final battle with Jezebel.

Carefully, I manipulated the image, the converter filling in holes in the scene as the focus swung out from my point of view to a more third-person scene, capturing the entire gang including myself in the image, something we’d never been able to do before.

“Oh, this is perfect!” I exclaimed again. “Alright, let’s pick out a few more clips, and then find some of the others to put together a good run.” I glanced over toward the stairs leading up out of the basement, a good feeling forming. “Yeah, we’ll make this a wedding that everyone will remember.”

* * *

Only a couple of days later, and it was early August. It was also the big day.

The entire village had been decorated over in some manner or other, and every house was full to the brim as the Hooligans attempted to accommodate most of the Bog Burglar tribe and several other important guests. The Great Hall had been filled with streamers and artificial flower bouquets, as well as decorative weaponry of every kind that the village had managed to get their hands on (which rather fit the wedders-to-be more than the fake flora did, honestly).

The usual serving table number inside the hall had also been tripled, and various steaming dishes were already starting to line them from one end to the other. My parents had made the mistake of letting Berk know about their cooking prowess, and so almost a quarter of the various foods had their influence mixed in if not a direct hand in their preparation. The one wedding detail that had somehow been kept from me however was a big shock: Holly had (drumroll please) been selected as one of Camicazi’s bridesmaids, along with Astrid; when she’d finally told me, I had my answer as to why Holly kept disappearing at random periods over the past couple months. She’d been preparing just as much as the two brides had.

Not to be outdone too terribly however, Ruffnut had pulled Ember into her entourage, and declared that since she’d been the one to first invite Holly to the wedding formally, Holly would have a seat of honor by her in the feast afterward.

Hiccup and I had not managed to make ourselves exempt from the wedding line-up either though. Fishlegs had roped Hiccup into being his best man, and Tuffnut had asked me (much to Snotlout’s disappointment, however he and Thuggory had been later posted in honorary positions as the groomsmen). This meant basically everyone I knew was being dressed in the best ceremonial clothing the two convening tribes had to offer, and thrown into long rehearsals in the mornings approaching that day.

“Is it just me, or do these tunics itch?” Snotlout groused, scratching at his neck.

“It’s just you,” Hiccup quipped.

“Well, then they gave me the worst outfit they could,” Snotlout continued anyway. “And it’s tight. These pants are starting to ride up my”-

“Finish that sentence and I’ll drop you in the harbor,” Thuggory warned, adjusting the buttons on his outfit. “Silverwings and I did not fly all the way here to listen to you complain.” Just because though, he walked over anyway and smacked the Jorgenson on the back of the head. “Now come on and get in line; we have to run through this _properly_ at least once before the actual thing.”

We did line up, eventually, with Fishlegs and Tuffnut at the head of the two columns and looking more professional than I’d ever seen them before: Fishlegs had his hair combed into an even part, and was wearing not his usual pullover outfit but instead a clean-cut woven gray tunic, complete even with full sleeves and cuffs. Tuff had even foregone his dreadlock-style braids (meaning, amazingly, that he washed his hair for the occasion) for a flat and straightened hairstyle, and wore a dark tan button-down outfit. Of all days too, this one he was almost silent about; we’d finally figured out how to even make the twins anxious.

Another hour was taken up rehearsing the ceremony, which had become a bit of a blended mix of the older northern European traditions as well as influenced by the Hebraic ideas taken from Ember and I: a “fetching” of the brides, readings of verses and vows, and later followed by exchanges of the family swords and the wedded pairs’ rings. Lastly would come the personal vows, and then the celebration would begin. As we practiced as much of the ceremony that our “boys only” group could, I couldn’t help but chuckle however as both Fishlegs and Tuffnut tripped over themselves in their rehearsed lines.

“You know, it is okay to be nervous,” Hiccup commented, having noticed their fumbling as well. “We all know this is a big day for you both after all, but we are all here to support you guys; no need to freak out over this.”

“Uh, Hiccup, we are getting _married_ today,” Tuff pointed out. “I’ll eat my helmet, Viking’s honor, if you manage to avoid messing up your lines when you finally get hitched with Astrid.” He grinned, causing Hiccup to go red at the proclamation, and the latter was about to reply when a shout from the hall entrance drew all our attentions.

“Alright ye lot, clear out!” Gobber announced, hobbling in with an armful of supplies I didn’t recognize. Behind him came Stoick, Valka, and Bertha, with all their dragons in tow. “Final set up is starting now, can’t have ye all seein’ me last surprises!”

With a reluctant sigh, everyone started filing out, Thuggory snagging both Snotlout and Tuffnut’s collars as they tried sneaking looks at whatever Gobber was hauling and dragging them out. As I walked by the incoming posse, I took note of Valka’s huge smile.

“Well, you’re certainly quite chipper today,” I mused. Her smile only got bigger.

“It’s the first wedding I’ve been to in twenty years,” she exclaimed. “My last was my own!”

<And it’s all she’s been able to talk about the past week,> Cloudjumper muttered as he moved to help lift a banner into place. <I, personally, will be happier when it’s all over.>

I chuckled. “Oh, come now Cloudjumper, this is supposed to be a happy occasion. You could do with lightening up and…” I trailed off as I turned back toward where Gobber was, and caught his expression. “Uh, Gobber, are you…are you crying?”

The smith immediately straightened, either missing or ignoring his dropping of several odd baubles as he tried to hide the tears that a dragon’s eyes couldn’t miss. “I…well...” he stammered, before frowning. “Now come on, I think I get a little leeway today with the hard Viking demeanor, don’t I? My little girl is finally being wed off!” He sniffled, and I laughed softly.

“Hey, it’s not a weakness to show emotions; you have every right to cry Gobber, especially today.”

“Yeah? Tell that te Stoick. Man could hardly shed a single tear on his own wedding day.”

The chief’s protest followed shortly thereafter, throwing all of us into bouts of laughter. Shortly afterward, I finally obeyed Gobber’s command and did exit the hall, taking in the view outside of the cleaned-up village. Hiccup and the other guys had moved off to finish up a couple of last-minute details concerning the rehearsals, and I could see Toothless, Embron, and Twintail being enlisted to help hang a few more banners between the houses. I was about to head off myself to find Sasha and company and give them a hand down in the village when a beeping noise went off in the air around me. A couple seconds later and a specially built two-way radio materialized in my hand, and I answered the call.

“Heelllooo?” I toned jokingly.

“Hawken, you might want to get here shortly,” Zipeau’s voice came in on the other end. “Some of your other guests have arrived.”

My eyes widened, followed by my smile. “I’ll be there in three.”

* * *

As soon as I touched down and opened the back door, I was greeted by many familiar faces, some that I had not seen in quite a while.

“Hey, Leighton! Glad you could make it, Ruffnut will be beyond ecstatic!”

The young woman laughed. “Well, this is an invitation I couldn’t turn down,” she said. “A wedding in Berk; how many have that opportunity?”

I nodded, before turning to greet the other visitors: Josh, Sarah and Hadassah, and a few new friends from the university who had come to meet and form friendships with the Berkians. Up to this point though, there was one major development none of them had been made aware of yet.

“So, I wasn’t terribly surprised by the Terrible Terror on your mom’s shoulder when she answered the door,” Sarah noted, turning to look at said person as she walked out to the kitchen with Teshra riding along still, “but last time I checked, tigers, cobras, and dinosaurs were not regular inhabitants of Berk, or your house, before.”

They are now,” I chuckled. “The family’s just gotten a little bigger, and the story is a long one. Perhaps after the celebration I’ll explain.” I grinned and turned to take the projector from Zipeau, who had just come back up the stairs and was smirking at the looks he was getting.

“Anyway,” I continued, “hope you guys are all ready, as the last preparations are being put together as we speak and everyone will be taking their seats in about an hour.”

“Are they assigned?” Josh inquired. I shrugged. “Not as far as I know. They’re Vikings after all, which means the sooner we get there, the better.”

We did manage to leave shortly thereafter, everyone climbing onto my back when we entered the portal and I morphed (my mother somewhat reluctantly; her first ride with Toothless had never quite been forgotten for some odd reason), and we took off for the village.

On the way, Hadassah leaned forward and asked my mother, “So, is Holly also attending the wedding? I didn’t see her at the house.”

My mom laughed. “Oh, she’s one of Camicazi’s bridesmaids, so she’s more than attending,” she explained.

“Somehow I’m not surprised by that arrangement,” Leighton commented, drawing laughs from everyone.

As soon as we landed in the plaza, I knelt down so everyone could get off before demorphing myself and leading them up toward the Great Hall.

“Still half can’t believe this all exists,” Josh noted, looking around.

“And yet, here you are attending a wedding in Berk,” I returned. Reaching the huge double doors, I pulled them open and gestured for everyone to go inside before a voice caught our attention.

“Hawken, there you are!” Amethyst called, coming in to land with Toothless right behind her. “The others are looking for you, and it’s just about time for the procession to start.”

“Had to go and grab a few guests,” I explained, gesturing to the group now staring at the pair of Night Furies before them. “If you recall, most people, as well as Kingsley, Zipeau, and company, can’t fly on their own.”

“Right,” Amethyst toned, now noticing the looks that Sarah, Josh, and the others were giving her. “And I take it you all have yet to hear about me and the rest of the Descendants, am I correct?” When they nodded slowly, she hummed knowingly. “Thought so. I’m Achlema, or Amethyst, whichever you prefer. Pleased to finally meet you all.” She gestured with her wing to the entrance to the hall. “I would strongly suggest you all find seats quickly, before everyone else gets here.”

Then, the female turned and focused on me. “And _you_ might want to go meet Tuffnut at the Thorston household before everyone goes more berserk than that place usually is.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going!” I quipped, ignoring the chuckles coming from everyone else at my being chewed out by the dragon. “I’ll see the rest of you all when the ceremony starts, and Amethyst and Toothless should be _happy_ to answer any questions you have!” I grinned at the last part, causing the two dragons to both frown.

<That was low,> Toothless growled. I, however, simply waved goodbye before he could say more, and took off as the questioning began in earnest.

* * *

Before any of us really felt ready, the wedding ceremony had begun. Several village musicians quieted the crowd by beginning to play a traditional tune as the two grooms and their support came down the central aisle created by the arranged seats. My friends smiled at us as we passed, causing Fishlegs, Hiccup and I to blush slightly at the attention, before we all took our places upon the specially built platform in the back of the hall. The two “best men” stood by the ceremonial weapons and ring boxes that would be used later, while the honor guard Thuggory and Snotlout took their places at the platform’s edge.

Stoick was presiding as the officiate to conduct the wedding, and as he stepped up I could see in his hands the script of the events to proceed. Clearing his throat, he smiled and spoke up, gaining all eyes.

“Welcome Hooligans of Berk, our allies the Bog Burglars, and our invited guests!” he bellowed. “Today we are here to witness the joining of not one, but two couples in marriage: our own Dragon Riders Fishlegs Ingerman, Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thorston, and the heir to the position of Bog Burglar chieftain, Camicazi Terevson! Today there will once more be a uniting of our two tribes, and a sealing of bonds for life!”

Stoick turned and gestured toward the double doors, announcing, “A great deal of preparation has been made for this moment, so without further ado, it is time to commence the fetching of the brides! Families of the betrothed young women, please enter!”

The doors slowly swung open, and the parents of the two brides entered first: Bucket and Brunhild Thorston, and beside them Bertha and Gobber Terevson, walking slowly and stiffly as they tried to hide their anxious excitement for the moment. Stopping just behind the first row of seats, the two couples parted, revealing the brides and their bridesmaids.

An awed gasp followed by a pronounced hush fell across the room. Only those present who had just walked into the room had seen either of the two women all morning, and the results of their preparations were startling.

Camicazi stood tall with her hair unbraided, pinned back instead to fall down her back in a cascade of silken blonde, and she was dressed in a wrapped, flowing green gown, the garment curling around her torso and held by braided shoulder straps and a golden sash around her waistline, the bottom of the gown flaring out around her feet in gentle ruffles. Crowned upon her head was a woven wreath of yellow, blue and violet flowers.

Ruffnut also wore her hair down, a style I’d never seen her in before, but hers was unpinned and draped around her shoulders over the silk white dress she wore, bound with golden shoulder clasps and a light yellow waistline sash and crowned with a wreath to match Camicazi’s. Behind them both were the bridesmaids dressed to match, and my sister looked absolutely radiant as she smiled widely, holding with reverence the box containing the ring Camicazi would give. Astrid held Cami’s ceremonial sword, and behind Ruffnut Ember held the female twin’s sword while another of the girl’s friends, Iona, held the ring box.

A couple of silent moments passed before the two grooms remembered their next part. Fishlegs and Tuffnut immediately attempted to straighten up more than they already were, and slowly stepped off the platform and walked forward, coming to meet Ruffnut and Cami halfway as the brides were accompanied by their parents. Bowing in courtesy to said parents, the grooms offered small gifts as a symbolic exchange for their spouses-to-be, and then carefully turned and walked forward hand in hand to the platform once more.

The next portion of the ceremony was a traditional reading of scriptures and recitations of blessings, so to avoid replicating the results at least a handful of audience members experienced (a note for the future: do not ever snore at a Bog Burglar’s wedding) I will pass by those readings here. A symbolic circling of the brides around the covering the grooms stood under followed, and when they were done, Stoick gestured to the bridesmaids and best men, and spoke out to the audience.

“Tradition has long entailed the giving of family swords between bride and groom,” he explained as Hiccup and I gave the swords carefully over to their true bearers, and Astrid and Ember did the same. “A symbol of respect and prosperity,” Stoick continued, “the two pairs here will also exchange them to represent their bestowing of full trust to each other. These swords, many of them centuries old, are of great value, and no less dangerous than those used in battle.”

A smile graced the chief’s face as he spoke. “By this exchange, the bride will give herself to be under the protection of her husband, and the groom shall demonstrate his trust that he will always find support in his wife.” Stoick stepped back then, and watched on silently as Tuffnut and Fishlegs knelt forward and offered the hilts of their swords out to Camicazi and Ruffnut, and then grasped in turn the hilts of the blades held out to them. Carefully each unsheathed their weapons from the scabbards, and crossed them together, before putting the blades away carefully once more.

“Now, each of you are to recite your chosen vows,” Stoick announced. “Your words here are permanent, written on the contracts that you will sign and are to be lived by from this point forward.” He nodded first to Camicazi and Tuffnut, out of respect to the heiress, and though their words trembled at first, the two spoke in tandem and finished strongly, smiles across both their faces as they echoed each other. Ruffnut and Fishlegs followed, their strong voices together speaking words that actually drew tears from all four participants (Tuffnut would later deny this fact, of course) as well as from many within the audience. Promises of faithfulness, trust, steady hands and strong hearts were made, before the two pairs joined hands, wrote out their signatures on the contracts laid upon the table behind them, and then looked to Stoick.

“Ring bearers, come forth,” he ordered. Holly and Iona carefully presented Cami and Ruffnut with their boxes, while Hiccup and I gave the two grooms theirs. Every ring had been Hiccup’s handiwork (at all the engaged’s requests), so I had managed glimpses of the designs while in the smithy, but fully completed they were far more impressive now.

Tuffnut and Camicazi had been made rings layered in what appeared like gold, but a material far rarer: Mood Myscale, rings that would change with their bearer’s emotions, and decorated with thin dragons that wound around the rings. The tops bore clasps bearing identical stones of Alexandrite. Fishlegs and Tuffnut had requested something simpler, silver laced rings with twin daggers decorating the clasps that held jewels of citrine.

“Tuffnut, Fishlegs, do you both swear to take your wives and care for them, protect them, and provide for your family, for so long as you both live?” Stoick asked solemnly.

“I swear,” they both said together. Stoick nodded, and turned. “And do you, Camicazi and Ruffnut, swear to take these men as your husbands, to protect and support them, and care for them, for so long as you both live?”

“I swear.”

Stoick’s visage changed from stern to one graced with a thin smile. “Betrothed, exchange your rings.” The two pairs extended their right hands, the other holding and carefully placing the ring each held on their partner’s finger, and then the couples laced their hands together once more.

“As officiate to this ceremony,” Stoick then announced, gesturing widely to the four of them, “I now pronounce Tuffnut and Camicazi, and Fishlegs and Ruffnut, to be husband and wife! You may now kiss the brides.”

Almost immediately the two couples locked lips, and a great cheer erupted through the hall. Stoick carefully stepped around the amorous pairs, and raised his hands to the crowd. “Let the celebration commence!” he exclaimed.

The crowd began to disperse at once to head for the tables, though they soon found themselves slowed by the dragons present who had decided amongst themselves that the honored couples were meant to be first in line. As they headed off to start the festivities, however, I ducked around and walked up to my sister, smiling.

“Alright Holly, I’ll admit it this once: you look beautiful,” I said. “Cami must be proud to have you as a bridesmaid.”

“What’s this, my brother giving me a compliment?” Holly teased in mock surprise, before looking over at Cami (as best she could without grimacing at the smooching). “I’m glad she took my advice for her hair. She looks great this way!”

“As a bride should,” Astrid noted, walking up to us both now that she had managed to grab Hiccup. “So, should we tag along with the others and get the festivities going? Hiccup told me you and Zipeau had something in store, having to do with that device you guys were carrying around a few weeks ago.”

I nodded, scanning the crowd for the dinosaur. He’d already taken it upon himself to set up the projector off to the side however, and was waiting for the right time to turn it on. “Looks like it’s already been taken care of,” I said. “How about instead we go find the lucky couples who’ve run off now and let them know.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hiccup agreed.

We found them quickly enough, as Ruffnut had slowed down to give Leighton a strong hug and Fishlegs had struck up a conversation with Josh. “I see you guys are getting reacquainted,” I said as we walked up.

“When we live in two different worlds, makes regular visits a difficult thing,” Ruff pointed out. “But that’s beside the point. Come on Leighton, Fishlegs and I have first dibs. You can join us and get the best spot!”

“Not if we get dibs first!” Tuffnut protested, him and Cami both dashing off toward the banquet tables.

“Hey!” Ruff yelled, chasing after them and semi-dragging Leighton with her, the latter giving me a look of somewhat amused helplessness as she was led away.

“I’m amazed those two are as close friends as they ended up,” Astrid remarked.

“You and me both,” I agreed. “Wise probably to follow their lead though, and get a seat and some food especially before Snotlout does.” Laughter followed the comment, and we sauntered off.

Several minutes later, everyone had managed to grab at least one plate and was watching with rapt attention the flickering clips projected on the back wall: camping outings we’d taken around the island and elsewhere, shots of the adventures past focusing on the twins, Cami, or Fishlegs, and (mostly just to sate Ruff and Tuff’s interests, but also to finally get back at Cami) some of the incidents the three troublemakers had pulled off in years past. Hiccup and I both put on very satisfied grins when we saw Camicazi’s face turn red at the image that convicted her of being the one to string up Spitelout’s underpants over his doorway the night of one of her past visits, before we saw her fix us with a look; there would be danger later.

“So, this was what you were putting together,” Hiccup mused, and I nodded. “Yep. This was our gift: a trip down memory lane. Though, I’m sure that last one is more personal humor than gift.”

“It is also a test run,” Zipeau added from where he sat nearby. That drew everyone’s attention.

“What do you mean by ‘test run’?” Cami asked. “You have more images like this? And if I find out it’s you intending to air everything we’ve pulled or messed up on, I swear”-

“I promise it’s not,” I placated. “We can source and modify anyone’s memories; Zipeau and I can put together hours’ worth of material this way and create a mirror of our past.”

“So, like a movie?” Holly asked, leaning closer.

“More like a series,” I said. “It’s my next idea for introducing the reality of Berk to our world. Actually, Zipeau and I are already preparing a notice to DreamWorks.”

“So, wait, you mean that we’ll get to be on TV?” Tuffnut asked, grin forming rapidly. I chuckled. “Well, you already are in a manner of speaking, but possibly.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Cami warned, “because then he’ll get me going.”

Suddenly, the doors of the hall swung open, and a now-familiar new set of voices spoke up. “See? I warned you about the time difference, but no, you didn’t listen.”

“Calm yourself, at least we got here before the celebration ended fully. Now where”-

The owner of the second voice stalled for a moment as he spotted us along our table, and a smile stretched across his expression as he began to head toward us. “Fishlegs, Camicazi, Ruffnut and Tuffnut! My congratulations to all of you on this special occasion, and my sincerest apologies for our late arrival.”

Fishlegs stood up first, taking the new guest’s hand. “It’s understandable Odin,” he reassured. “I see Hawken did in fact manage to pass on the invitation at least. Are the others here as well?”

Odin nodded and gestured behind him as the rest of the family entered the hall. “Well, everyone that could. I’m afraid Jordan is a bit too large to fit in here of course, so he volunteered to stay behind.”

The rest of the new arrivals came forward and began giving their own individual congratulations, while Odin and Freyja noticed the looks on the faces of our friends from back home. “I take it you don’t frequent here often?” Freyja asked. They all nodded.

“We-we’re from where Hawken lives, more or less” Josh answered. “And, did I hear correctly? Your name is Odin?” he asked, looking the aging man up and down, who nodded in response.

“Indeed, Odin Asgard, pleased to meet you. That is my name, not where I live, mind you. I assume this means you have some familiarity with the Old Norse myths, then?”

My friends nodded, eyes widening further as they pieced everything together.

“They’re the sources of those myths,” I interjected, “but the stories are based more off of convoluted tales than truth. If we want to talk about it later, we can, but for now we should probably focus on celebrating the wedding, hmm?”

“Yeah, there’s still plenty of food left, so please help yourselves,” Fishlegs offered to our new arrivals, who nodded gratefully. I, meanwhile, turned back to Josh, Sarah, Leighton and company, grinning. “This really isn’t your typical wedding now, is it?”

* * *

The feast and festivities extended well into the night. Thor, Loki, Sif and the others had brought wedding gifts for the two couples, and after those had been carefully put up out of the way with the rest, musicians were called out to begin playing. Almost immediately, singing and dancing began to spring up around the hall; unfortunately this was also combined with hefty portions of mead and ale, so most of the dancers were not at all very well coordinated.

Everyone managed to enjoy themselves though, and many laughs were had when even Amethyst tried dragging Toothless out to dance (I have never, ever seen Josh laugh that hard). Honestly, I think there’s a reason why only people try to tango.

“I must say, this is a sight I thought I would never see.”

I turned to find Loki taking a seat nearby, watching Amethyst laugh at Toothless’ bewildered expression. Loki smirked before continuing. “I mean, other than a dragon trying to dance. We were told Toothless was the last, and I thought he was to be my last reminder of those past days. On the other hand, every time we end up on this island there’s a new surprise, but today might have the most.”

He looked at me seriously. “Where on earth did you manage to find a second Night Fury? Shocking enough that there is a talking tiger over by the mead barrels, but I thought all the other Night Furies were gone.”

“They were.” I admitted. “Amethyst is a Descendant, like Sasha and some of the others here, related to me in a manner of speaking. They were brought to life a couple of months ago following a rather complicated story.”

Loki nodded. “So I can imagine. The others like….you said Sasha?...are a similar back story then, how fascinating.”

He looked around for a moment, before his expression changed and he leaned a little closer, holding his hand out. “Anyway, there were a few other reasons I came over here. This is another gift for Camicazi; give it to her after we leave if you will and tell her not to let the twins know about them. And please, also tell her only use them when she needs to, they’re hard to make.”

He placed in my hand a small vial containing a number of very small, pill-looking objects with various colors marked on the sides, each color in a separate compartment.

“The code is on the side,” Loki explained. “She should be able to figure it out from there. And, Heimdall asked me to let you know privately that he had a premonition.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” I mused. Loki shook his head. “No, likely not. Some of the warnings and visions he gets never happen, because some action prevents it from occurring, but he said that something is coming. Something we haven’t faced before.”

“Well, with what I’ve been against thus far, it should be handle-able,” I replied.

Loki smirked in response. “After my years on this earth,” he said, “I’ve learned there tends to always be something that can still shock you.” He moved to stand up, and nodded to me. “Enough of the gloom at the moment I think however; I must return to the celebration. Tuffnut challenged Thor to an arm wrestling match, and that I must witness in person.”

I smirked as well and searched through the crowd for said twin, before something else Loki had mentioned rang through my mind again. My eyes widened in alarm.

“Loki, did you say earlier that Sasha was by the mead?”

“Yes I did, why?”

“SASHA!!”


	13. The Temporary Tranquil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peace is so often fleeting... especially for our dear characters...

_Calm skies reign before clouds_

_The ripples before the waves_

_Tread light in tranquil waters_

_Lest the still moments give way_

The Italian countryside had always appeared beautiful in his eyes, sprawling vineyards and forests green under the autumn sun. The coast was equally so, if not more, framed by the blue Mediterranean waters that reflected distant clouds. If he had the choice, he would simply sit down and give praise for the wonders that God had placed on the earth even in everyday life.

Unfortunately, the soothing atmosphere of the landscape was heavily marred by the task at hand. It had been ten days, and Attonius and his loyal friends had managed to only make it as far as the southwestern coast of Italy in their attempted journey to Berk, and had spent three of those days desperately attempting to find someone willing to sail north, with no such luck.

Stories had already gone round about the former bishop’s last trip to the Barbaric Archipelago, and while Attonius had at least received a neutral send-off, there was no telling what the Vikings, or their dragons, or the youth with the draconic abilities would do if he and the small crew that accompanied him returned to Berk’s shores. But, Attonius knew he was Rome’s (if not all of Europe’s) only chance at escaping their new threat peacefully, and so he steeled himself and approached the captain of one more seafaring vessel in hopes that perhaps this one would be brave, or at least amenable, enough to travel with him.

“Excuse me sir, can you spare a moment?”

The Sami glanced over his shoulder before setting down the box he held and facing Attonius, looking somewhat skeptically at the bishop’s tattered robes. “Not a problem. How can I be of assistance?” he asked.

Attonius shuffled nervously. “Well, my name is Attonius and my…my friends and I are seeking a vessel to transport us north,” he explained. “Thus far no one has been willing or available, and it is a bit of a journey to where we must go and a terribly urgent matter.”

The seafarer grinned. “Well, then perhaps you’ve finally come to the right man. The name’s Eret, son of Eret, and my crew and I happen to be available currently for hire. Our last endeavor was cut short none too long ago and I’m seeking to start something a little different.”

At this news, Attonius’ eyes lit up, and widened with relief. “You are? Oh, praise be, how soon would it be possible to set sail?”

“As soon as proper supplies are garnered,” Eret replied, gesturing to the box at his feet. “It should only take a couple of days, even for a long journey. Perhaps I should ask though, where is your destination by the way?”

“We are heading to the island of Berk, in the Barbaric Archipelago, to discuss some urgent matters.”

Almost instantaneously, Eret’s eyes darkened. “Oh. Berk, did you say? Well, that may make a bit of a problem for us, my friend. Not sure if I can help you there; you see the inhabitants of that place are not too fond of me and my crew, not after our last encounter, and I’m afraid the feeling is somewhat mutual.”

“Oh dear,” Attonius toned. “I will admit I don’t know how well we will be received either,” he explained, “but it is imperative that we reach that island, and soon.”

“I’m sorry, but I really do not want to risk my crew on this,” Eret deflected, “and what could possibly be worth facing an island full of dragons and a boy who could wipe us all flat with a flick of his hand?”

“Rome is under siege by a man who seems to have powers of sorcery, or at the very least some incredibly resourceful allies,” Attonius countered, “summoning weapons and creatures the likes of which I have never seen before, and that man seeks the boy you mentioned. If I don’t find Hawken, and convince him to at least pay Rome a visit for a day, he’ll wipe the city to the ground possibly followed by the rest of the continent.”

Eret pursed his lips pensively. “As explanations go I have to honestly admit it’s not the craziest thing I’ve heard or seen recently,” he admitted. “Alright, if I do help this won’t be an inexpensive trip, especially as I will be risking my own neck and my crew by returning to that island. There are a pair of Night Furies who I know especially won’t be happy to see me.”

Attonius quirked an eyebrow. “A pair? I thought there was…oh, never mind, it matters not at the moment.” He reached into a hidden pocket in his robe and produced a bag of coins. “Would this be enough to buy passage for myself and my three companions? It was all I could manage to gain from the city despite everything to try and find my way to Berk.”

Eret carefully took the bag, untying the neck and peering inside. Then he smiled and gestured toward his ship. “My friend, I believe we have an agreement. My crew will help you and your friends find room aboard, and then we can set sail in three days’ time, so long as you can lend a hand around the ship.”

The former bishop sighed with relief. “At last. My gratitude to you, Eret son of Eret.”

* * *

Mid-September, and unfortunately college life had started up again full-scale.

Okay, so overall it wasn’t too bad, since I had more classes near to my interests this semester, but the research-based class was a pain in the rear (not anywhere near as fun as hanging out at Berk). Luckily, I now had regular help at home with things too, or I would have been swamped with work of all kinds; Zipeau was once again proving himself masterful at all things scholarly, including not the least of which providing paper topics and effective argument supports that I was struggling to dredge up for the papers due seemingly every other week. However, as time dragged on and we all fell into the new routine again a new issue rose up: that of an inquisitive cobra.

“Come on, it’s been nearly a month; can’t I visit at least once?” Kingsley whined as I and my sister got ready for school one morning. “I mean, you were the one saying I needed to work on my people skills.”

“Yes,” I sighed, “but this is a place full of people who are afraid of any snake, let alone a venomous and _famous_ one in more ways than one, and there are a lot of ways for things to go wrong.”

The cobra pouted, climbing up the chair and curling over the straps of my backpack. “Okay, so I’ll stay near, or on, you, be friendly, and stay out of sight if it’s really necessary,” he countered.

I groaned and rubbed my forehead. “Oh, fine! Fine, as long as you behave. Holly, you’ll have to make room for Kingsley while we head over there.”

“Actually,” Holly toned, looking toward Nara, who was lying in front of my greenhouse, “how much of an issue is it if I ride Nara to school?”

“Oh, for the love of…one problem at a time Holly, please?”

She crossed her arms, before reaching over and giving the Nadder a scratch as Nara got up and joined us. “Look,” Holly began, “it will save time as Nara has little to do without me around so she can just head back to the house, and you don’t have to go out of the way to drop me off. And, everyone would assume that she’s you so long as she doesn’t say anything when dropping me off.” Both teenager and dragon locked me with stubborn, pleading looks.

I raised a finger to protest, but had nothing in particular to come back with. “Oh, alright,” I conceded, “but the first time an issue arises I go back to taking you. The city already knows I have a cobra and two big cats living, as they want to claim, illegally here; I’m not quite ready to let everyone know about the existence of full dragons or the dinosaur who’s been acting like a hermit in the basement.”

Zipeau’s indignant “I heard that!” followed shortly. Holly and Nara cheered at the approval, the two of them racing into the garage to grab the saddle, and shortly afterward I watched the pair leave the back yard. Then I glanced over at the cobra still sitting on the chair.

“Well Kingsley, looks like we have a few minutes to spare before we head out. I, for one, am going to see if DreamWorks has sent a reply yet.”

* * *

“Oh my god, what is that?!”

I held in a cross between a laugh and a disappointed sigh at the ridiculous reaction, and looked up at the girl who had just walked into class.

“Well, I’d think most people would recognize a snake when they see one.”

“Yes, and it’s around your neck! In class!” she exclaimed.

I arched an eyebrow. “And, your point being?”

Her reply was interrupted by another student walking through the door, and doing a double take. This one was more familiar with reptiles (as one would normally have expected, considering the class was focused on reptiles and amphibians), and spoke out of an entirely different kind of concern.

“Uh, Hawken, please tell me that is either a fake or taxidermied or something, because that looks just like a king cobra,” he said nervously.

Kingsley, in reply, turned and gave him a deadpan glare, making both of them, and a third student who walked in, back up in shock.

“Might as well calm down and quit freaking out,” I mused. “This here is Kingsley, and yes as you just noticed he is real, and yes he’s a cobra.”

“And you have him on your neck?”

“Not like he’s going to hurt me, or anyone else.”

“Uh, dude, it’s a cobra!”

“Who happens to be a very close friend, kind of family, and somewhat timid so belittling him like this doesn’t help.”

I paused, mouth open, as the “professor” arrived. A graduate student who was teaching under the actual professor, both of them worked with venomous snakes on a regular basis and so he too took a double take as well. I chuckled. “Morning Tom. Uh, really quick I want to introduce you to Kingsley. He wanted to see what college is like for a day and wouldn’t stop bothering me about it so I decided to let him tag along. I hope it’s not too much issue; I warned him about how people might react already.”

Tom looked at me incredulously. “I’m sorry, are you on something; is this a joke? You ‘warned’ him? That’s a dangerous animal even under controlled conditions, let alone loose in a classroom!”

“Well, as am I,” I replied. “Kingsley, say hi.”

The cobra glanced up at me, before timidly waving his tail at the class. “Uh, hello. N-nice to meet you all.”

Okay, so save for the one girl who was terrified of snakes that fainted at that, the rest of the class took it decently.

* * *

Most of the day played out similarly in a repeat fashion, save for one guy who thought it was macho to try and grab the cobra off my neck. Needless to say he got tail-smacked right over the nearest table, and then escorted promptly from the room. That aside, things did go better than I had expected, though perhaps it was because I found myself able to slip by easier with things since I had been able to turn dragon.

After my last class was over though, I headed down to the bottom door of the building, looking for a certain person to give an opportunity to (partly because there was some info I needed that he could help me with). Unsurprisingly, I found him just outside of the snake room.

He looked up as I turned the corner, though didn’t wave as his hands were occupied holding a prairie rattlesnake for venom extraction. “Hey Hawken, what brings you down here? Assignment iss-oh.”

At this point he noticed the snake around my neck. I smiled in response. “Actually, Dr. Makesey, wanted you to meet Kingsley. He wanted to tag along with me today, so for once I decided to oblige.”

“You’ve been carrying a king cobra around with you through the school?”

“More or less. Anyway, you do venom research and I thought that this one could be of help, sort of as his payment for making me deal with the headache of bringing him here. Ever study cobra venom?” Kingsley glared at me for roping him into this, but I didn’t give a response back.

Makesey shook his head. “Can’t say that I have in-depth like the vipers. You want to try and extract from him or something?”

“I will provide the venom without help, thank you very much,” Kingsley indignantly replied. “I don’t need that embarrassment.”

The professor jerked in shock, though still thankfully keeping hold of the admittedly sedated rattler in his hands. Wisely, he moved to put that snake away afterward.

“You didn’t say anything about him being able to talk,” he said bluntly. “Don’t you think that’s kind of dangerous as well to just find out about from thin air?”

“He’s a semi-sibling to me, comes with the territory nowadays,” I drawled. “And, we discovered not too long ago that, like me, he can manipulate the venom he produces, so while he does produce cobra venom naturally, he can also make, well, seems like just about any reptile venom that’s out there. Might be a safer option in some cases than working with the actual species.”

Makesey pursed his lips thoughtfully, before grabbing a venom jar, holding it up. “Well, I’m sure we have room to look into it.” After a moment he offered the jar to Kingsley. “If you’re, uh, willing.”

Kingsley extended his tail and took the jar, before sliding off my neck. “Hold on a moment,” he said, slithering to the floor, and then expanded up to full size before sinking his fangs into the jar, nearly filling it with the golden fluid. Then, he handed the jar to the startled professor.

“More venom, more opportunity for testing,” he explained. “Careful with it, though I doubt I need to tell you that, I guess.”

“W-well,” Makesey stammered, setting the jar down, “I’m sure we’ll find a use for it eventually, or other labs can. I’ve never seen this much venom from one snake before.”

“As you might have noticed, I’m not particularly a normal snake either,” Kingsley joked, shrinking down again as he moved up to wrap around my shoulders once more. I nodded, then fished from my pocket a smaller vial and handed it to Makesey as well.

“Before I leave, one last thing I wanted to give to you for testing,” I said. “And I only trust this to you, no one else. It’s Piffleworm venom, but I deactivated the human recognition capacity, so it’s harmless to people now but nothing else.” I pointed to the vial. “That’s normally enough venom to kill thousands, and I don’t have the knowledge or technical expertise to figure out exactly how it works, but I thought you and the rest of the lab might.”

“So this is dragon venom?”

I nodded. Makesey looked closely at the vial. “Do you have at least some knowledge of the properties?” he asked.

“Neurotoxic, normally can kill within thirty seconds if it gets under the skin at all, even from a scratch, and takes barely a microgram to do the job,” I explained. “And, thanks to some earlier tests I know that manipulated with electric charges I can make it act species-specific against or harmless to any organism, but only if fully isolated.” I gave him a serious look. “It is very limited supply, as only Kingsley and I produce it, but I wanted to give you a sample because if we can figure out the properties better, I might be able to target even pathogens while inside a host. I’m sure you know the implications of that.”

Makesey nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Great. Anyway, see you in lab tomorrow.” I waved and took me leave, heading back up to ground floor.

“So, am I going to be called out now to start supplying venom all the time?” Kingsley asked.

“Think of it as your payment for wanting to come today, as mentioned earlier,” I said lightly. He groaned, making me laugh as we exited the door and took to the skies.

* * *

“So, any issues getting there or coming back?” I asked as I walked into the house. Holly got off earlier than I did that day, so she and Nara were already home.

“No, no, everything went smooth,” Holly replied. “Can we lease continue this arrangement? Nara is a lot more readily available to pick me up after school too, and she’s easier to talk to.”

“Gee, thanks,” I toned, setting down my backpack and letting Kingsley slither off.

“Oh, don’t take it too hard Hawken,” Nara spoke up from the living room. “Girls just talk to each other easier. Plus, Holly and I share more interests directly than you two seem to. It’s just facts.”

“Yeah, you both have a thing for flying sharp objects, a focus on your appearance, and silly behavior.”

“What can you expect? We’re partly related after all,” Holly retorted.

“And there’s another oddity in this family I’m never getting over,” my mother noted, coming out of her room and into the kitchen.

“Eh, all part of the strangeness that is life,” I joked.

“And it got as strange as possible when you found that portal.”

“It could be stranger. I guarantee it.”

My mom smirked. “That’s true, you’re probably right. We could suddenly find you related to Toothless.”

“Well, them and Hiccup already act like brothers as it is,” Holly pointed out, “down to the poking fun at each other all the time!”

“Hey!’ I protested, but I couldn’t hide my grin; it was closer to the truth than they realized after all.

Chuckles ran through the group in the kitchen, before things quieted again. “Hiccup came by earlier, by the way,” my mom informed me as she sat down at the table, “said that the tailor was done with something you requested.”

I smiled wider at that. “Finally. Been waiting on it for a month and a half!”

“And what is it you ordered?”

“A long coat of sorts, mostly for flair. You know how I am.”

Holly snorted. “And here I thought you were trying to avoid more attention.”

“Well it’s not like I’d be wearing it all the time” I deadpanned, “much like I don’t always have my swords on display, or the staff Hiccup made.”

“Alright, let’s move on to a new subject before you two start going at it,” my mom said. “Hawken, since you’re available right now, help me make dinner.” I scowled, while Holly taunted with a pointed “Ha ha!”

“And Holly, how long has it been since you picked up after the dogs?”

Now it was my turn to laugh.


	14. Final Marks

Sukkoth was always an interesting time, spent either camping or going from house to house in festive moods for a week. Holly enjoyed it greatly, like always, friends and family getting together and her able to see friends she rarely got to hang out with normally.

However, as the first evening of the festival began to progress, the teenager was far from any other people. As the moon rose and began to acquire that blood hue that was expected to arrive (it was to be the last of the quartet of lunar eclipses coinciding with the feasts), Holly gave out a yell of excitement as she and Nara blazed over the mountains of the Berk interior. She knew she’d get an earful taking off in the evening without explicitly telling anyone later, but at that moment she didn’t care; she sat on a dragon’s back after all, and the first pieces of her new Myscale suit were clasped on and being taken for a test flight. Made from scales of both Amethyst and Embron, and underlain with a layer designed with Nara’s scales for extra resistance, the girl was enamored with its red and black, stylish design and had to try it out as soon as she’d received it.

“You ever wonder about how amazing it is that we all got stuck together?” Holly asked over the wind, looking down at the Nadder. Nara glanced back, giving a smirk.

“Nah, I just take it as it is. The crazy part is that they let you and I hang out together all the time; that’s dangerous right there!”

Holly laughed. “Speaking of which, want to get in some more target practice when we land, or just laze a while as we watch the moon come up? I’m good for either.”

Nara contemplated the choice for a moment, before speaking up. “I vote target practice. We get to laze around often enough as it is.”

“You mean you do. I have school now, remember?”

“Right, right. So you’re saying you don’t just sleep in class?”

“Unfortunately no.”

Chuckles followed them through the sky as the duo angled into the mountains, looking for a suitably open spot that not only had a great view of the sky (which for once was not covered by clouds) but that they had frequented before. As such, the edges of the clearing on the mountainside were littered with makeshift targets and splinters that once had been targets. As Nara touched down, Holly immediately jumped off, lifting up the visor on her helmet and pulling it off before reaching into one of the many pockets that outlined her getup. Out of it slid a set of gleaming, silvery darts, a set Holly had come to favor over the months she’d been practicing using projectiles.

“Not working with your black ones?” Nara asked, ruffling her spines as she flexed. Holly shook her head. “It’s getting dark, and the moon’s going to be of little help so I kind of don’t want to lose them. Plain Mysteel shows up a lot better.” The teen turned and regarded an old wood stump propped up against the rocks about twenty feet away; once the base of a centuries-old pine, it had been removed when the plant was found dead and set up for a target, though now it was reaching the end of that use as well, littered with cuts and holes as it was.

A flick of the wrist, and a shiny projectile hurtled through the air, embedding itself all the way up to the handle and then some into the splintered wood. A second, third, and fourth soon followed, before a huff escaped the thrower.

“Still a little bit off center,” Holly muttered, walking up to the target and removing the darts one by one, noting how they were all spaced just a couple of inches away from the painted center ring of the stump. “Got to work on that otherwise Cami will lord it over me.” She stepped out of the way, before nodding to her companion. “Alright Nara, your turn! Bet you can’t do better!”

The Nadder chirruped and took up a battle-ready stance, flexing and causing the spines along her tail to stand on end before whipping the appendage forward, a quartet of spines whistling off and sailing through the air toward the stump. A pronounced THUNK! echoed, and the duo observed the result of the attack: four Nadder spines, not quite neatly embedded in a line across the target, just a hair below center.

“Got a little closer than you,” Nara teased, bouncing over to Holly. “You really going to let a months-old dragon beat you even?”

“Oh shut up,” Holly snapped. “I said Cami would lord it over me, not you! Ugh, alright, I need to get this do-okay, give me some space would you?” she quipped as Nara jokingly laid her head on top of the brunette’s helmet hair. Nara snorted and backed off, looking up and noting that the sky was truly getting dark now, and the moon was entering total eclipse, the blood red shadow almost completely covering the orbiting object.

Holly shook her head and reached up to straighten her hair, and then readied the first dart in her right hand once more. As her arm came up to throw however, she noted an odd, slightly tingly feeling erupt on the upper parts of her arm. Shrugging it off for the moment, she whipped her hand forward again.

The girl’s senses suddenly came alive for a split second, everything crisp and clear and seeming to move in slow motion. For that moment she could practically see the exact path the dart would take when she let go, automatically adjusting her grip and aim so that as it left her hand, the weapon sailed perfectly straight, embedding itself almost completely in the dead center of the target.

“Nice job Holly, that was way better than last time!” Nara complimented. “Got it down finally?”

“No, I…something weird just happened,” Holly said quietly, looking at her hand. Then, she glanced at her arm, where the odd sensation was still radiating out from. “Everything suddenly got really…I don’t know, like I just knew exactly what to do. My arm feels weird too. Wait…wait a minute…” she reached up and began unclipping the holdfasts on her suit, unzipping it and releasing her arm from the outfit.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Nara queried, looking on with concern and coming up to look down over Holly’s shoulder. The teen ignored her, quickly sliding the short sleeve of her shirt up to try and see if there was something that had gotten onto her skin or perhaps a scratch to make it tingle. What she found was much more shocking.

It was glowing faintly, a silvery color that almost matched the gleam of the Mysteel darts Holly had dropped moments before. The edges were still spreading, like a brand being etched into canvas and revealing an unusual design that didn’t match anything either Holly or Nara had ever seen.

“What on earth?” the Nadder whispered. “You…what’s doing this?”

“Not me,” Holly whispered back. “It’s like…oh, my, God.” The teen sat bolt upright as a realization hit her, and her eyes looked up toward the eclipse hanging in the sky, before glancing back at the mark that was halting its spread, the glow remaining just as strongly though.

“What? What is it?” Nara queried.

“It’s a symbol,” Holly replied. “Just-just like Hawken said happened at Pesach almost two years ago. Everyone –Hiccup, Astrid, Ruff and Tuff- they all ended up with a symbol, Hawken said they started out glowing when the eclipse showed up, even Ember’s birthmark. Tonight’s the last eclipse too.” A new light entered her eyes, and a smile showed up. “This…this means, oh geez this means I’m part of the team officially! I…I wonder if that’s what the thing with the dart was?”

Nara cocked her head, and Holly raised her arm so the dragon could see the mark better, and Nara realized what the shape was. “I think so too,” she agreed, examining the design: a sharpened arrow, the shaft laced with flame-like marks that stretched back to where it appeared to be fired from a dragon’s mouth. It wasn’t just any dragon either: it was a Night Fury’s head profile. “Night Furies are famous for never missing. Holly, you’ve been marked as a marksman.”

“Nice alliteration.”

“You just got a supernatural tattoo and a gift and you’re making fun of my speaking?”

The teen gave the dragon a deadpan look. “It’s not a tattoo, remember the talk about those? And yes, yes I will; makes things easier to get used to.”

Nara scowled. “Right, because you’re never normal and making things more awkward helps. Still, you have a flaming arrow on your arm; pretty sure the sudden sense overload has something to do with that.”

“I want to test that theory,” Holly mused. She put her sleeve back in place, before reaching down and grabbing another dart, immediately whirling and letting the blade fly. Just like before, everything blazed into focus for her, adjusting even in her spin and resulting in the second dart sliding in right next to the first, causing the target to crack audibly, a long split racing out from the impact toward both sides of the stump.

“I think that confirms it,” Nara commented. “We should tell Hawken about this.”

“No, don’t!” Holly suddenly exclaimed. “No, I want to keep this as a secret, wait until some really important time.”

“But don’t you think this is kind of an important time as is?”

“You know what I mean. Come on; work with me on this, will you? Please?”

Nara shuffled uncertainly, before sighing. “Oh, alright, I won’t tell him. But you’d better have a really good reason for this. I don’t think God gives this sort of thing out just because after all.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Holly agreed. “Last time, it was right before a major battle.”

* * *

Mom was not happy with Holly, that much was clear, but unfortunately short of me taking off to drag her back there wasn’t much that could be done about my adventurous sister. She was with a dragon, so my mother settled for pacing back and forth as the sun set and the moon rose up in its progressively darkening show in the sky.

“She knows we’re not here all night, and there’s who knows what in the mountains; do you at least have some idea where those two would go?” she muttered, drawing looks from some of the villagers passing by.

I snorted. “Yeah, she’s up at the target practice place they set up to the west of Thor’s peak. There’s not an animal on the island that would bother them anyway so long as Nara’s watching either.”

“She tell you she was heading there?”

“No, I just know where they are. Or at least where Nara is. Long story.”

“Holly going to be back for the storytelling tonight?” Ember asked, walking down the steps from the Great Hall with Camicazi and Hiccup in tow. “We all know Gobber might not be the easiest to listen to, but he’s not the only one for once tonight.”

I shrugged. “Probably not. You do remember that Hiccup attached the first of the pockets to her suit a couple days ago, right? She’s probably up there going all out with her pointy objects since she can carry them more easily now, and more of them.”

“Right,” Ember sighed. “Well, what about you guys? Heading up, or staying out with us to watch the moon for a little longer?”

“We’re staying out here for now, unless Sam says otherwise,” my mom replied, glancing over to where my dad was talking with Stoick (who was looking rather glad to have a welcome distraction from directing a bunch of rowdy Vikings hyped up for a festival). “Early enough that we might be able to watch the whole ec-Ember!”

I saw the mark on Camicazi’s arm light up before I noticed Ember; in sync with the sudden illumination of the symbols we all wore, her eyes had gone wide, and she gasped aloud before collapsing to the ground. Immediately on alert, I jerked forward, catching her head before it hit the stone steps and trying to lift her up, before I made a different decision and let her lie down across the step.

“What just happened?” Hiccup asked, motioning Cami to help him keep gathering people far enough away to ensure Ember would not risk getting stepped on. “Dad! Ember just collapsed!”

“She’s heating up, like that time before Jezebel first showed up,” I noted, scales rolling across my arms and body as Ember began radiating enough heat to incinerate paper at a distance, her hair and skin glowing. “Mom, Dad, help Hiccup keep everyone back please, while we figure this out!”

“What about the marks?” my mom asked, pointing at both my arm and Hiccup’s neck, where the designs that had been put there were both glowing. “Those lit up right when she went down. This has happened before, hasn’t it?”

“The last time the symbols were glowing was when everyone except Ember and I received theirs,” I said. “The last time Ember fainted like this was when she received a glimpse of the fight that was coming with Jezebel, some time before that. They didn’t happen together like this, so either it’s coincidence, or”-

“Or we’re about to be thrown into something really bad,” Hiccup finished for me. “If Ember is getting another vision of something to come, we’re all getting some really big clues that we need to pay attention.”

The night of Camicazi and Ruffnut’s weddings suddenly came to mind. “Loki mentioned to me that Heimdall had received a vision a couple months ago,” I said quietly. “If nothing’s changed we might be getting a confirmation of what he saw.”

“And you only decided to mention this now?!” Hiccup quipped, glaring at me from where he was trying to clear flammable debris away from Ember.

“He asked me to keep it private until we were certain it was a glimpse of the future,” I replied. “So yes, I’m only mentioning it now.”

Several minutes passed, and the glow of the symbols grew brighter as the moon above darkened, and Ember continued heating up, to the point where the rock beneath her was beginning to glow red. Nearly everyone had gathered around the steps to see what was going on. Then, just as quickly as it had started, all our symbols went dark again, the normal silvery outlines (or in my case, scales) all that showed, and Ember’s glow died away. Moments later, her eyes fluttered open, and she gasped as she sat bolt upright, expression fearful.

“Whoa, hey, everything’s fine!” I placated, kneeling down and placing a hand on her shoulder. Hiccup and Cami moved to do the same, before the heat of the still-burning rocks beneath us made them scoot back a little. “Ember, what happened?”

“I…it was another vision,” she said quietly, confirming our concerns. She looked up at us, then Stoick, and my parents. “I saw flashes, all of us in a place I’ve never been to. It looked like your city, but much, much bigger.” She took in a deep breath, and then shook her head. “Hawken, something’s coming, and it’s terrible. I saw cities leveled to the ground, thousands dead, creatures…nothing that has ever lived on earth, either earth. There was….it was like my gift, only a thousand-fold larger; fire and ice, meeting and driving death before them.”

“Did it come from you?” Cami asked worriedly. Ember shook her head. “No, not from me. This wasn’t natural in any manner. Oh Lord, I saw evil in it worse than anything Jezebel ever came up with; destruction for no other purpose but to destroy.”

Then she looked at me, and tears welled up in her eyes. “Hawken, the thousands dead….there were Vikings, but there were also people like in your home world, as if they were fighting. I…I think whatever’s coming is big enough to hit both our worlds. And…” she trailed off, seemingly not wanting to voice whatever was last on her mind.

“And what?” Stoick implored. Ember sucked in a breath, and shook her head again, before she spoke.

“Hawken, it was you. I saw you cold, burned….I saw you broken.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger...  
> The dragon-boy's sister is around far too often for her to not eventually be pulled into the gang officially, and my own sister that she's based off wouldn't be happy if I didn't include her in the antics to come. Just in time too, things are gonna heat up really fast soon.


	15. Shifted Tide

_Oceans role, oceans rule_

_Their waves carve caves and tidal pools_

_The greatest secrets in the world_

_Hide beneath cerulean swirls_

_Oceans carry messages too_

_The taste of nations that touch the blue_

_Alongside as well the wonders of wide_

_Dangers ride the dread riptides_

The closer the ship came to the island that rose like a crown from the sea, the more anxious every crew member on board the vessel grew.

Eret was well aware, painfully familiar, of just what lived on the land ahead, and the kind of send-off he’d received the last time was an experience he absolutely had no interest in repeating. Spending three days in a cell with little more than basic amenities decorating it before being basically thrown back onto his ship was not a good way to boost his self-esteem or his image among the trade routes.

To try and keep his mind busy and off the subject instead, the Sami found himself checking and then re-checking that everything was properly and securely stored away and was desperately resisting the urge to load himself with weapons and various sharp objects to ward off whatever or whoever might greet his ship first.

“Peace, my friend,” the trapper heard from behind him, and Eret turned to find the former bishop standing nearby, staring stoically at the island they approached. Despite everything, Eret couldn’t believe how collected the man was. Throughout the trip he and the few men that had come with him had been quiet, keeping to themselves when not helping keep the ship in proper order, and Eret had only gleaned slips of information about the man’s own last visit to Berk; they had not been terribly peaceful images, and at best neutral.

Attonius noted the somewhat incredulous look that Eret portrayed, and smiled softly, though Eret still managed to catch onto the stress that now showed through underneath, which only worried the sailor more. “We are arriving under very different purposes from our last encounters,” Attonius continued. “Anger is likely to be expected from some of the villagers, but things will work out for the better, I have faith. If I know how Hiccup and Hawken operate, unless they’ve changed drastically in the past years, at least they will understand.”

“They did not strike me as the most forgiving of people the last time I met them,” Eret countered, rubbing his shoulder where he could swear he still felt Amethyst’s claws.

“Did you have some great change of heart upon your encounter?” Attonius asked. “Or did you simply send off with a mind to never return? I led an army here when I came last from the northern half of the Roman Empire, with a hatred of dragons and a determination to convert or wipe out the Vikings. I left instead with respect for a formidable people and their allies and a powerful blow to my hard-headed arrogance.” The robed man turned to face the sea again, looking across it to Berk. “Let me do the speaking if you fear your words will spark unfriendly encounters.”

Eret snorted, turning to send a glare toward Trilian, a crew member who was letting one of the ropes to the sail go slack, before giving comment again. “Oh, I can ensure there will be an unfriendly encounter if it’s either of the two Night Furies who spot us first. And we are within visible range from the island now, especially for a dragon.”

Attonius quirked an eyebrow, glancing at the Sami. “Ah yes, when we first met you mentioned two Night Furies but I never did get the rest of the story. The last I was here there was only one, and the rest were thought extinct.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought as well when I went there,” Eret sighed. “And I managed to shoot down the newcomer, who is apparently a relative of the dragon boy in some odd way. To say she was less than pleased is a gross understatement, and the one Hiccup rides just as little so when they found us.”

“The dragon is related to Hawken?”

“Yeah, long story that they didn’t bother explaining to the guy who was hunting her; apparently they have some sort of unique blood relation, and on top of that the two Night Furies are both clearly somewhat fond of each other. Our meeting nearly ended with my ship torn in two by them and Hawken.”

A distant shrieking roar drifted across the sea, drawing the attention of every single man on deck. There wasn’t a soul on board who hadn’t been made thoroughly familiar with that sound, and nearly everyone tensed further when that disturbing whistle began to build shortly thereafter.

“Like I said, they won’t be happy to see us,” Eret quipped, voice rising. “Men, stand down and find cover!”

As they scurried to hide behind appropriate shields or equipment, Attonius focused forward. Against the clouds that framed the sky, he quickly spotted the speeding black silhouette, and then a second a short ways behind the first. Both were dropping rapidly toward the ship, so he gripped the railing to try and keep his own misgivings down and braced himself.

* * *

“You know Hiccup, if you wanted me around just to talk to, you could say so,” Astrid teased as she lifted the axe handle in her hands up to set it on the wall rack. “I’m sure it gets sooo lonely in here with Toothless, Ember, Orha, Gobber…”

“Is it a problem that I enjoy the company of my girlfriend on occasion, especially while I’m working with hotheads?” Hiccup shot back, hiding a smirk at the huffs of protest that echoed around the forge. “Besides, seems I can’t talk to Toothless without eventually straying to the topic of him and Amethyst, and that never ends well.”

“Yes, remember the last time you brought it up, and remember it well,” Toothless quipped, walking by and smacking Hiccup upside the head. Hiccup, for his part, failed to duck in time to avoid the appendage and glared at the dragon.

“Yeah, it got me sat on and farted on, thanks for the reminder. Have you no shame?”

“Not when it comes to getting even with you,” Toothless retorted.

Hiccup sighed and glanced at Astrid, gesturing with his hand. “See what I mean?” he asked.

The blonde nodded, smirking. “Yep, you two act just like most real brothers would, what else is new? Anyway, what all do you have left to do here?”

Hiccup grabbed a clamp and bent the hot metal at the anvil into shape. “Not much, just finishing this doorframe fitting at the moment. Actually, I’ve been waiting for Amethyst to show up, since Toothless needs a break and she volunteered to help with the last bit for the Heineman house project.” He glanced out the window nearby and frowned. “Though, she was also supposed to be here already. I wonder what’s holding her”-

“A ship was just spotted nearby,” the harsh reply cut in. All of the occupants in the forge spun to see Amethyst standing outside the main door, seething. Her spinal crests were split, and the scales surrounding them had begun blushing with violet luminescence. Her next sentence explained the temper.

“It’s Eret’s ship,” she spat, “and he’s heading straight for the village.”

Toothless’ eyes narrowed almost to match the female’s as well, but he kept a calm head as Hiccup held up his hands placatingly. “Okay, well, let’s not make any hasty conclusions,” he said slowly. “Eret knows trying to pull a stunt like last time will not end in his favor, and he can’t be stupid enough to try doing so in the village. He wouldn’t be coming here unless he had a _really_ good reason for doing so, especially after his last encounter with us. Maybe he wants to try and make peace, or needs help”-

“Or maybe he got better equipment so he thinks he can hunt the dragons here, since he knows we live here!” Amethyst snapped, turning away and flaring her wings. “ _You_ be the diplomat, _I’m_ going to remind him that he’s not welcome in Berk!”

The female took off, ignoring Hiccup’s desperate “Amethyst, wait!” Hiccup sighed, and pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose. Then, he ran over to Toothless. “Come on bud, I know you and I don’t like Eret much more than she does but we need to try and catch her.” Turning, he called out, “Astrid, go with Ember and find Snotlout, tell him we need a guard, and get Fishlegs to send a message to Zipeau; we’ll need him on standby in case we need Hawken here.”

Astrid and Ember both nodded and bolted out the door, their dragons following behind and all of them taking to the skies as Hiccup and Toothless did the same, trying to catch up to Amethyst before the other Night Fury did anything stupid. Unfortunately they knew she could occasionally have the same temper her brother did, so if anything went wrong it would occur spectacularly.

The female had a long lead on the pair, and as they came up behind her Amethyst let out a furious shriek before rising into the clouds, building height for a dive.

<We’re not going to reach her in time to hold her back up here,> Toothless warned, switching back to Dragonese out of habit and to overcome the wind. Hiccup grimaced in frustration before focusing on the ship below. Even from a distance he recognized the ornate sails Eret had displayed the last time, and still seemed proud to show now.

“Alright bud, head for the ship instead, Hiccup directed. “If we get there quickly enough we might be able to guide them to the docks without Amethyst forcing everyone overboard beforehand.”

Toothless nodded and banked to the side, folding his wings and going into a dive of his own as Amethyst also began her fall from the sky. The famed whistle built around both of the Night Furies, but Amethyst had the advantage of height to build her speed and so soon raced well ahead of Toothless. Just above the ship, they saw her flare, and an indigo fireball rocketed downward toward the ship.

* * *

Attonius finally followed the instinct screaming at him to hide when the plasma sphere hit the sea just beside the ship, deafening him with the detonation and rocking the vessel with the shockwave, drenching the deck with seawater. Still daring to try and see what was taking place, he peeked out from behind the crate he’d dove past to see the Night Fury fly by. This one did not have a saddle, and had scales glowing with violet highlights straight down its back; Attonius quickly realized that this had to be the newcomer, especially when it released its next surprise: it focused on Eret, who was hiding by the far railing, and spoke with harsh intent.

“Remember me, Eret?!” she yelled, wings flaring and bringing her to hover just above and beyond the prow of the ship.

“Hard not to, Amethyst,” Eret replied shakily. “I’ve still got bruises from the flight to the village.”

Amethyst snorted in response. “Really?” she snarled. “Because it would seem to me that _everything_ left your head, including our promises to you!”

“Amethyst, I swear on my life we are not here to hurt you, or any other dragon!” Eret pleaded, standing to his feet and raising his hands in surrender. “We just need to-“

“Whatever it is,” Amethyst growled, “you can do it somewhere-“

_“Amethyst!”_

This voice Attonius immediately recognized, though the more mature, no-nonsense tone was somewhat new. The owner showed himself moments later as the second Night Fury appeared, flaring above the ship and dropping down to land firmly on the deck. Hiccup jumped off half a second later and both he and Toothless stood to face the airborne female.

“Stand down!” Hiccup ordered. “You won’t fire so long as we’re on the ship, so we’re not moving until it docks!”

“And let this disgrace back on the island?!” Amethyst shrieked, scales glowing ever brighter.

Hiccup crossed his arms, unimpressed. “Everyone gets at least one second chance,” he said firmly. “Let him pass, and my father and I will decide what actions to take. Or, should I let Hawken know what you were planning here and now?”

The threat carried enough weight to silence the Night Fury, whose scales finally dimmed once more but her eyes continued burning, their gaze narrowing even further.

Hiccup nodded. “I thought so. We will talk about this more back at the village,” he toned. “And there _will_ be a talk.”

Amethyst gave a growl of extreme displeasure, before turning and shooting off back toward Berk.

Hiccup sighed and rubbed his forehead as he turned to face the captain of the ship. “You had better have a really good excuse for coming all the way back here, Eret,” he warned lowly, glancing up squarely at the Sami. “Amethyst is not the only one here who currently has a low opinion of you, not by a long shot, so you’re lucky that Toothless and I tend to be more forgiving.”

Eret put a hand against the railing, reaching up with the other and scratching the back of his head worriedly. “Uh, well, I’m going to be honest and tell you that I personally don’t have much reason for coming here,” he admitted. “I really rather not be here at all, but a client is a client, worth the trip in this case.” He pointed behind Hiccup. “He’s actually the reason we’re here at all.”

Hiccup’s eyebrow rose, and he turned, as did Toothless, to the man Eret had pointed out. Both of them simultaneously jerked in surprise.

Attonius was taking in some surprise of his own at seeing the pair after so many years. Toothless had clearly grown some, and bore the marks of a few more recent scuffles than his last meeting (the priest suspected the Night Fury would have shown more if it weren’t for Hawken’s doing as well), but Hiccup had changed far more dramatically. Over six feet tall, the boy had grown startlingly, certainly not the fishbone of a teen Attonius had met previously. He eyes bore the looks of someone who had seen it all already, and lived to tell about it, and he was dressed in a shocking outfit of slick, leathery black material that seemed to have the same consistency of the scales of the dragon beside the young man. He was covered in pockets and holsters, from which Attonius clearly spotted a number of weapons he decided he did not want to learn how they worked first-hand.

Attonius had also changed as well to the opposing pair. No longer bearing the air of self-righteous arrogance that had once surrounded the man, he looked instead like he’d been thrown out of a moving vehicle and then brought low from that pedestal by more than just the mutual encounter they shared, head begun to gray from the stress of it. Attonius also did not have the darkened red satin robe that he had worn last time, but instead a nearly tan cloak with the faintest of red pigment still hanging on, littered with holes and tears and permanent stains reflecting the changed look in the aged man’s eyes.

“A-Attonius?!” Hiccup stuttered incredulously. Attonius nodded somewhat cautiously. “Yes, yes, it’s me. I never thought I’d end up on a path that would lead me back to here, but two and a half years later here I stand again.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “We did not start off on the right foot at all last time, nor did I quite manage to make repairs of any kind before I left, so I don’t expect any immediate trust or actual welcome. But I’m hoping there’s a chance now that I may appeal to you, as I am in desperate need of your help.”

“It will take a lot of convincing before this village decides to help you, even with reconciliation,” Toothless toned flatly, giving Attonius another shock. He looked at the dragon, eyes wide, before glancing at Hiccup.

“Forgive me, but this I was absolutely not expecting; when did your dragon learn to talk? I know he spoke no human languages when we last met.”

Hiccup chuckled despite himself. “About a year and a half ago; him, and a few others more recently. You might find our friend Hawken has picked up a few more things since two and a half years past, if that helps answer at all.”

Attonius nodded, before folding his hands and haltingly addressing Toothless directly. “Do forgive me, as this is a new experience even with having met your friend Stormfly. But, um, I did not come here seeking the help of the village as a whole. I need to speak with your friend Hawken, most urgently.”

Toothless put on a slightly smug look at having made the former bishop uncomfortable, before replying. “He’s not in the village at the moment,” he said, “so you’ll have to wait until we can contact him. He is usually very busy on days like this.”

“We’ll try and get ahold of him as quickly as we can however,” Hiccup assured. “Meanwhile, we will escort you to the harbor under our guard, just to be safe on all sides.”

As he and Toothless turned to face out from the bow, Eret looked over at Attonius. “I will admit that went far better than I had expected,” he said quietly.

Attonius nodded. “Agreed if I am to be honest. I tried to kill them the last time I was here, and nearly succeeded.”

“You almost killed them and they’re letting you back?” Eret marveled, glancing wide-eyed at Hiccup. “They’re far more forgiving than anyone I am familiar with then.”

Attonius smiled lightly. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

Minutes later the boat slid up next to one of the docks in the harbor. Toothless glanced around with concern, before looking over at Hiccup. <I’m going to go and see if I can find Amethyst, calm her down a bit,> he said. <It’ll be better for all of us if she can keep a level head through this.>

Hiccup nodded in agreement. “When you’re done, we’ll probably be in the Great Hall,” he replied. The Night Fury nodded, and took off over the docks before disappearing over the cliffs, and Hiccup turned back to their visitors. Attonius had his attention elsewhere however.

“There is a rider without a saddle,” he noted with some surprise, looking up. Hiccup followed his gaze and smirked; Cloudjumper was descending toward them with a familiar passenger.

“Oh, yeah, that would be my mother,” the young man drawled.

Attonius blinked in surprise. “Your…I had been told your mother was…” he trailed off, looking up again.

Hiccup laughed. “Up until last year we thought so too. Hey Mom.”

Cloudjumper landed and Valka leapt off with practiced ease, looking over the visitors. “Came down to see what all the commotion was about,” she explained. “I saw Amethyst flying off in a righteous fit, and now I know why.” She gave Eret a drilling look, which the man cringed under. Then he turned her gaze to Attonius. “You’re a new face however. Have ye come here peacefully?”

Attonius cleared his throat and carefully replied. “Well, y-yes, I come here in peace, but I’m afraid I do not bring a very peaceful message. I’m here to speak with Hawken; a great calamity has befallen my current home, and while I would have sought other solutions if there were any, he is the only person who can solve this I’m afraid.”

Valka nodded, thinking silently for a moment before looking to her son. “Best ye contact Zipeau, so we can get in touch with Hawken. If I recall correctly he won’t be very pleased to be disturbed in class however.”

Hiccup sighed. “Yeah, I already asked Astrid to get Fishlegs to do that. He won’t be happy, but I get the feeling this is a big issue to send Attonius up here again.”

“Attonius?” Valka asked. “Oh, this is _that_ man, is it?”

“We’re going to be neutral in this encounter for now,” Hiccup reassured. “He’s done nothing on this trip yet to suggest negative intent, so I will give the benefit of the doubt.” He turned and began heading up the walk path. “If you could lead them up to the Great Hall, Astrid, Ember, and Snotlout will be”-

A Nadder, Shadowracer and Nightmare landed nearby a second later, cutting Hiccup off for a moment, and he shrugged. “Never mind. Astrid, you know what to do. You talk to Fishlegs?”

“Yep, but there might be a snag already,” Astrid replied. Hiccup groaned. “Oh, perfect.”

As the heir left, Attonius looked quizzically at Valka, who smiled knowingly. “It’s a very long story, best not te try getting into it at the moment,” she said lightly, before nodding to Astrid, who took lead of the group.

* * *

Toothless didn’t take long to find Amethyst, bright indigo flashes going off along the beach near the sea stacks. He glided over the cliff bordering the sand, immediately backpedaling to avoid a sudden spray of sand from another blast, before carefully landing a short distance away from the irate female. She noticed him and turned further away, tail twitching and the crests on her spine vibrating with anger. Toothless sighed and shook his head.

<You know, it won’t help getting through this situation by sitting out here and blowing up rocks,> he drawled, only to earn a vicious snarl from Amethyst. <Look, Amethyst, I’m not very happy that Eret and company are back either, and not much more enthusiastic about Attonius, but I know most people can change if given half a chance, and I know both Hawken and Hiccup would chew me out if I wasn’t willing to forgive. Lord knows how many terrible things I did before I met Hiccup too that were probably on par with what Eret’s done.>

When Amethyst stayed turned away, silent, Toothless took a cautious few steps forward. <Amethyst, while putting this behind you is best for everyone right now, yourself included, I’m not going to tell you that you have to; I’ll leave that to our family,> he admonished. <But, we do need you to at least share the village with Eret until we can figure this->

<No.>

The sharp rejection quieted Toothless in his surprise, before his eyes narrowed, losing his softer side. <Not like you have a choice,> he warned. <Your brother will make you stick around until->

<I DON’T CARE!!>

Again Toothless was cut off as this time Amethyst whirled around, wings flaring and spinal scales glowing violet as her anger peaked once more, the picture that had earned the species the name “Offspring of Lightning and Death.”

<I’ll _tolerate_ Eret when he _proves_ that he’s changed heart completely and _repays_ what he did, _maybe_ , but until then leave me ALONE!!>

She turned again, sucking in a breath as she aimed for a lone driftwood log lying upon the sand, scales doubling luminosity as she prepared an enraged shot.

Then it happened: electricity jumped into the air and crackled across Amethyst’s scales, and as she fired bolts of the charged energy raced into the plasma, the supercharged flame impacting the driftwood and exploding, blowing a ten foot crater into the beach and slamming the pair backward into the sand and rocks. A sound like thunder on steroids echoed along the cliffs, shaking rocks loose as fire and smoke curled upward in a roiling cloud.

Neither Night Fury moved for several minutes, shocked by the sudden turn of events and eyes glued open as far as they could be. Then, slowly their heads turned to look at each other, breaths shallow and disturbed.

<You…that…okay, that was not normal,> Toothless stuttered. <Amethyst, I can’t take no for an answer now; you need to calm down and let this go, or someone is going to end up seriously hurt or dead. And we need to go back to the village and talk to Hawken when he gets here.>

Amethyst’s eyes began to narrow again at the thought of facing her brother or Eret, before she glanced at the crater again; that had shaken her enough to clear her head up in an instant. She could kill someone too easily if she didn’t calm down, and a shiver ran up her spine at the thought, so she took in a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to stop the shaking. Then, she nodded slowly.

<You-you’re right,> she whispered. <I’m sorry. I’m wrong, I need to stop. Let’s go find Hawken and figure this out.>

* * *

“What do you mean he forgot it?!”

Zipeau winced as Hiccup’s angered voice pierced through the speaker (nasally as it often was, when Hiccup meant business he could carry quite the tone), before carefully replying. “That’s just what I said. Look, no one is perfect and we all forget things on occasion; he just happened to leave it here today. He’ll be back in about two or three hours, possibly a little longer, so I’m sure it can wait”-

“No, it really can’t,” Hiccup cut in. “We have visitors who are beginning to bring up some really bad animosity, both old and new. I caught Amethyst’s fire off to the west so she’s furious, and unless we get the story out of Attonius and company the rest of the village might go down like dominoes from that. They have some very time-sensitive information that we need Hawken here for, so somebody needs to go and get him.”

Zipeau closed his eyes and sighed. “Well, there’s really no one to do so here. Denise is out on errands, Sam works on Fridays, Kingsley’s been to the school before but we all know there’s not a snake alive that’s fast enough”- a protest from the cobra rose up from Hawken’s room but Zipeau ignored it, “-and the cats are out, so what do you suggest?”

There was silence over the com, before Hiccup inquired, “Did Sasha or Feren happen to take a com with them for once?”

“No, of course not,” Zipeau quipped. “And they probably won’t be back from hunting for an hour or two.”

“Doesn’t Hawken have a cell phone as well?”

“I don’t, and the coms don’t currently access phone satellites. What about”-

“No,” Hiccup answered before the question was finished. “Nara is an exception because it’s a rare chance anyone will catch both her and Hawken in the air together, but Hawken said himself that he didn’t want to risk anyone seeing other dragons yet.”

“And you think sending a dinosaur out into the city and knocking at a college classroom door is any better?” Silence again for a moment.

“Hawken said there have been rumors of dinosaurs surviving in some places in your world, plus with all of the movies that have come out there may be a shock, but not as much as a supposedly mythical animal taking to the skies,” Hiccup finally said. “Dinosaurs actually existed in both worlds and are accepted as such, dragons are an unknown.”

Zipeau snorted. “Tell that to the guy who turns into a dragon on a regular basis around here.”

“Zipeau…”

The Stenonychosaurus sighed, and glanced out the back door, off to the north. “Alright, alright, I’ll go get him,” he finally relented, “but whatever heat comes from this I will direct it to you. And you owe me.”

“Understood.”

Zipeau turned off the com, before hooking the device to the strap across his chest. Then he wrote the names Hiccup had passed on to him down on a paper note so he wouldn’t forget them, and put it in a pocket on the strap.

“Kingsley, if Denise gets home in the next hour or so, let her know what’s going on, okay?” he called. Kingsley poked his head out of Hawken’s room and nodded. “Will do.”

“Good. I’ll try to be back quickly.”

Zipeau turned and slid open the back door, preparing to take the short path instead of just following roads to save time. “Ugh, thank goodness I’m designed for running.”

The dinosaur bolted, sprinting across the yard and wincing at the chill already beginning to touch the autumn air, and jumped the fence, cutting across the fields behind the house before hitting the first road and following it up to the nearest intersection.

It was already mid-afternoon, and there were many cars traveling along all the thoroughfares, so the reaction was just as Zipeau expected: brakes screeched and wheels squealed, slowed and swerved as the drivers within the cars caught glances of the reptile racing down the sidewalk. Zipeau grimaced, knowing that thanks to a certain film earlier that year the reaction would be even worse to a dinosaur along the road, but he ignored the shell-shocked drivers as best he could and pressed on, crossing the street at a clear section and heading north. Then, he hit the highway.

No matter how fast he was, Zipeau was not going to take the chance of running across a busy interstate that freely. Reluctantly, he instead approached the crosswalk, pressing the button and waiting as he tried to ignore the stares coming his way.

As soon as the light changed, Zipeau took his chance, racing across the road and then down the grass next to the highway, heading eastward. Then the sound of sirens approaching reached his ears.

<Oh not now, please!> Zipeau groaned. <One dinosaur requires the calling of the whole police force, really?> He glanced behind him and spotted the vehicles heading his way, and reached into a pocket on his strap again, rummaging around for one of his inventions. <You people force me to use this and we’ll both be sorrier than I am already,> he growled.

Sure enough, the police cars raced ahead of him and halted one by one, lining up in a blockade as officers climbed out of the vehicles and stood at the ready, hands on weapons and holding radios.

Zipeau shook his head and pressed a button on the device in his hand. A row of number values scrolled down the little screen, several lining up in a series; a recording of all the radio and electrical frequencies the vehicles were giving off. With a resigned sigh, the dinosaur pressed down a second button as soon as the numbers stopped scrolling.

A small flash appeared, and all the cars simultaneously died, the radios the men were holding shutting off in tandem. Zipeau dodged past the now dumbfounded police, yelling back, “Sorry about this, but I’m kind of in a hurry!” as he ran by, smiling slightly as the men jumped backward in shock. Then he focused forward again, taking a path through the nearby neighborhood and preparing himself for just how mad Hawken would be at this broken policy of his.

* * *

It had been a moderately good day. Third year of college most classes start focusing on more of the student’s particular interests, even if the workload tended to stay strenuous, but that morning had been rather laid back and relaxing. A couple of tests so no extra homework had been assigned, and as I sat in my last class we were busy just wrapping up a short section in the physics textbook.

Then, a corner of my mind lit up, the mild sense I had picked up on telling me where the Descendants were if they were nearby, and the alarm bells started ringing. My concern was confirmed when the door to the room cracked open, and the professor’s sentence died off into stunned silence. I cringed inwardly, before turning to see who it was, and blanched.

“Uh, sincerely sorry for the interruption, and I know this is a huge shock to you all, but,” Zipeau apologized, turning to look straight at me, “Hawken, this is really, really urgent.”

I groaned and stood up, putting my things away, knowing I was going to have to skip the rest of class now.

“Honestly Zipeau, you’d better have a _really_ good reason for showing up here,” I warned, sweeping my arm toward the people still sitting stock still behind me. “You just opened up a huge can of worms here.”

“H-Hawken, what on earth is going on?!” the professor suddenly blurted, having apparently gotten over the paralytic part of her shock and staring pointedly straight at Zipeau.

I turned, took in a deep breath, and replied as calmly as I could. “Well, this is Zipeau; he is a dinosaur, a Stenonychosaurus to be specific, lives with me, and apparently has some serious news for me because otherwise he should not have shown himself in public like this because he _knows_ the consequences,” I said, glaring at the reptile, who only rolled his eyes. “The rest of the story is really, really long and I can’t get into it here.”

I hoisted my bags onto my shoulder, and stepped away from my seat. “I’m truly sorry about this, but I have to leave before this gets any worse,” I said, still glaring at the Descendant, who just shrugged anxiously, “and if I have anything serious that I’m going to be missing, could you please email it to me?”

The professor slowly nodded, and I smiled tightly. “Thank you. Sorry everyone, please just try and carry on.” I walked up to Zipeau and pushed him back out the door, completely aware that no one in that room was going to be able to focus on anything afterward other than the dinosaur that had just walked in.

Out in the hall, I dragged Zipeau to a somewhat hidden corner and faced him. “I’m guessing you came here on foot as you don’t have the keys to the cars,” I surmised, “so I’m also guessing that a lot of people saw you on the way over here. Do you have _any_ idea what kind of an uproar this could potentially cause, now that the city knows there’s not only a dragon guy who’s housing a cobra and a pair of big cats but _also_ now that there’s a dinosaur that knows him?!”

“Yes, I am perfectly aware of the possible repercussions, and it most certainly was not my first choice of action,” Zipeau defended. “Hiccup sent me here because he thought you wouldn’t want any of the dragons coming for you.”

I nodded. “True, but a dinosaur is nearly as bad at this point, especially a talking one. Look, I know you couldn’t send Kingsley, but what about Sasha, or Feren? People already know about them.”

“And they’re both out hunting today, remember?” he shot back. “And as usual they didn’t take the com sets. _And,_ we wouldn’t have had to send anyone and could have circumvented this whole mess if _you_ had remembered your own com.” He tapped the speaker sticking out of his tool strap pointedly. I winced and glanced down at my pocket, noting the obvious lack of com device.

“Okay, so that one is definitely on me,” I admitted quietly, “but why couldn’t it wait? I would have been home in a couple hours after I went to check on the venom sample I gave Makesey.”

“Eret came back,” Zipeau said flatly, shutting me up with that one proclamation. “From what Hiccup said, Amethyst is unsurprisingly ticked off and he’s worried that could set everyone else in a bad mood. Hiccup said Eret claims to be coming peacefully, but he also brought along someone else who needs to talk to you. Hiccup said you’ve met before, and his name is, uh…” he rummaged through a pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, unfolding it, “oh yes, Attonius.”

That name alone would have been enough to stop me dead in my tracks. I had tried to get things settled with the priest but we had not sent him off with fully trusting mindsets, and fully aware he could have reverted to his old ways more than easily. There were several reasons why he would return to Berk again, and immediately my mind went straight to the worst possibilities.

“Okay, we need to move, now,” I urged, turning and speed-walking down the hallway. “I need to tell Makesey that I won’t be able to check things later, and then we need to get to Berk.”

Turning the corner, I nearly ran into the professor I was looking for. “Whoa Hawken, careful,” Makesey said. “I thought you had a class still?” he queried, before his attention was drawn to Zipeau coming up behind me.

“As you can see something came up,” I explained. “And due to this, unfortunately I’ll need to look at the venom report sometime later. I have to head home, immediately.”

“Is…is that a dinosaur?” Makesey asked incredulously. I groaned. “Yes, but considering I can turn into a supposedly mythical reptile Zipeau here should not be as much of a shock as he seems to be to everyone. But, this is one reason I need to leave as there’s a chance I’ll have investigators coming to my door in short order again. He came here on foot.”

I nodded my head to indicate farewell, and moved toward the exit. “I can give you more details later if you like, but for now, gotta go!”

Zipeau followed me out, and as I morphed and he shrank so he’d fit better on my back, I queried, “Anything else I need to know right here and now?”

“Well, the police were called by someone who saw me on the way here, and there may or may not still be some incapacitated vehicles on the highway.”

“Oh, that’s just perfect.”

“You know now I didn’t exactly have time to stop for an interrogation.”

I did stop by the three cars that were still stuck on the side of the road as we flew back, fixing the circuits with a quick energy sweep and informing the police there of what they needed to know about the situation (on my own terms of course) before bolting straight back home. Then I stopped briefly to grab my new Myscale long coat and staff before both Zipeau and I headed to Berk, Kingsley tagging along.

Or, that would have been the smooth course of things if my mother hadn’t arrived home at the exact same time we did. She walked in the door just as we (me, Zipeau, and Kingsley) opened the back door.

“Where are you going that requires that coat?” she asked. “And I thought you were supposed to still be in class?”

“I was, until Hiccup sent Zipeau to fetch me,” I replied shortly, “in the middle of the day straight through the city. Whatever is going on in Berk it’s big enough for him to think risking that is necessary.”

My mother nodded, knowing just how much I’d stressed keeping the others relatively unknown to the world. “Well, keep safe,” she advised.

“Can’t predict what’s coming, but I’ll try,” I returned, before finally managing to step out the door with the others.

The village was awash with activity when we arrived, and as I glided in I saw both Toothless and Amethyst standing guard outside the Great Hall, and Cloudjumper and Thornado were also nearby; both Stoick and Valka were in the hall, so I immediately deduced that was where they’d taken the visitors. I landed and my two passengers disembarked as Toothless came up to us with an anxious look.

<They’re inside, but I’m sure you already figured that out,> he said, glancing at Amethyst. <And when you get the chance,> he continued, lowering his voice, <there’s a fair amount of animosity straining the situation, and another big issue we need to talk about.>

I followed his gaze to the female Fury, who was looking down at the steps uncomfortably, and nodded. <Once I have the time. Meanwhile, let me know if Sasha or Feren show up; I need to have a talk with those two.> Then I turned, and pushed open the doors.

The first person I saw was Hiccup, who noted my look and winced, but otherwise kept his serious face on. The second to catch my attention was Eret, who also noted my expression and attempted to make himself look as small as possible (an impressive feat for someone as tall as him).

Then, speaking with Stoick by the edge of the fire pit, stood Attonius. As he turned to me his expression registered shock, but also a hopeful recognition. Certainly he had not expected the image before him compared to when we first met: my coat was long, slick and billowing out at the bottom, darkest black lined with letters and designs of blue and silver along the edges, and spinning in my hand was the Night Fury-tipped staff of blue, violet, red, and silver.

On my part I had not expected how Attonius appeared either: worn and aged beyond his years, with somewhat tattered robes instead of the regal outfit he’d last appeared in. His eyes held stories of great tribulation since we’d parted company as well, and this alone began softening my expression; he was definitely not here to wage war.

The silent spell was broken when the priest turned his gaze to Zipeau, who stood behind me with Kingsley fiddling with one of his gadgets. “That is the oddest dragon I’ve ever seen,” Attonius commented. Zipeau looked up and chuckled.

“Oh, I’m not a dragon,” he said. “I’m a Stenonychosaurus, a dinosaur if you will.”

“Dinosaur?”

“They were reptiles that lived very, very long ago, and mostly died out long before man came around,” I chimed in, gaining Attonius’ attention again. “Zipeau is a bit unique, as much like I’m sure you know about Amethyst by now, he’s related to me.”

“Yes, I was informed of that odd fact by Eret, actually,” Attonius admitted. “Much has changed here since I left.”

“Stick around long enough and you’ll probably see a few other surprises . But, enough of the pleasantries,” I said firmly, dematerializing the staff for the moment as I went to take a seat. “Attonius, you and Eret showing up made for quite a headache for me, and from what I hear you disturbed my sister Amethyst quite severely as well, which I will be having to address shortly.” I clasped my hands and leaned forward. “Your purpose coming here had better be really, really important.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this more than 3 years before they gave Toothless the ability to spark and summon lightning in the third film...feels almost like they might have taken the idea from their fans.


	16. Revelations

_Ripples wash far and wide_

_Growing to waves and distant tides_

_Then they bounce and turn around_

_To strike the cause with crashing sound_

“I would not have traveled here unless I had to,” Attonius began, fidgeting slightly in his seat. “Since I last left I have struggled to make right what wrongs I committed, and I have fought with every fiber to open the eyes of others as you opened mine.”

He held up his tattered clothes, and continued. “When I returned to Mitlagard bearing news that not only had the army I led not taken Berk over, but that I and the men that I commanded would never fight such an evil battle again, we were all stripped of our ranks and exiled from the city, sent to Rome itself. The Roman Church however has no tolerance either for those opinions and beliefs, even when they stand as solid facts, that undermine their power, and so we were demoted to the same level as the poor and homeless.

“I am ashamed that it took all that to finally see the corruption within what I once called my family, my dominion, but I realize now more than ever what Christ meant when he said his true followers will be persecuted like no other,” Attonius admitted, smirking as if telling some terribly ironic joke. “The ridicule we faced was immense, and I and those who had chosen to stay true to what we were shown were left scavenging for scraps, never mind that we had become what the book we supposedly had followed claimed to be those who should be tended to first. I have never stopped trying to convince people of the truth that you found here, but so few are willing to even give a moment’s time to a man who has nothing behind him. This road is the most difficult to walk.”

“The right road always is,” I agreed, shifting in my seat. “I take it that explains why you have lost the clean, position-boasting robe you wore last time so proudly.”

Attonius nodded. “Yes, and that is one item I was rather glad left. I lost everything though for going against what the Church wanted me to do, but I simply cannot ignore something that almost literally hits me in the face, so I held on despite everything. I and the few who stayed with me, like Aaron and Titus who came here today as well, managed to at least build up a place for ourselves beyond the city, where we could more or less be left mostly in peace and away from the prying eyes of the Church. Things have been easier since then.

“About two months ago however, life took a very downhill turn. Not for me personally, but for everyone. A man arrived one afternoon in the city, walking in from the outskirts like he had traversed over the countryside. He was dressed in clothing I could only compare to yours,” he said, gesturing to me. “They were certainly not of a make any of the tailors in Rome could accomplish, despite their skills. He walked through the streets without a word, trailed by a creature I have never seen before in my life, and not like anything I could truly compare to. I can’t really describe it, but it looked somewhat similar to a serpent, or like the Viperwyrms of the desert, only far larger, with an odd covering upon its head and a weapon completely foreign to me at the end of its body.

“They took to the center of the city and the creature fired on the nearby buildings. One strike took down an entire bathhouse, thankfully mostly unoccupied, and they threatened to fire on the emperor’s home and then the people themselves. They didn’t make many requests, only the requirement of a place to stay in the city. And,” here Attonius paused and looked straight at me, “they required someone be sent to find you. I volunteered so that the rest of the city would not suffer further, and because I was one of the few who not only knew where you were but might have been able to risk coming back.

“The man requires you to come to Rome to meet with him,” Attonius urged. “Otherwise he threatens the destruction of the entire populace. Beyond this he gave no information; no name, no reason as to why he wishes to speak with you, and no explanation for why you must travel there to speak with him instead of him being brought here. I assume now it may be because you would not let him on these shores where you hold the familiar ground and he would rather a more neutral territory, but all I know is that if you do not show up within the next month or two, he will level the city and everyone in it before moving on.”

Attonius spread his hands in a pleading gesture. “These people once stood under me in a false mindset,” he said, “and they now persecute me for rejecting that same mindset without listening to truth, but no good would come from their deaths. I want to try and save them, and whoever else, however innocent, that may come to Rome whatever day that man finally loses his patience, but I do not have the capacity to do so myself.”

He moved to say more, but was cut off as the doors of the hall suddenly swung open, and a pair of very large cats came bounding inside.

“-next time. Yeah, not the greatest hunt but at least we learned a few useful tricks today,” Feren was saying to Sasha. They approached the fire ring, and he turned to look at me. “Toothless said you wanted to…”

He trailed off as he finally noticed the gathering, and his eyes fell rapidly. “Oh. Uh, sorry, what did we just interrupt?”

“Something rather important, actually,” I toned. “And, I know you two don’t like to wear them very often, but you need the com headsets, because we needed you earlier. The home town knows about Zipeau now.”

Now Feren winced, knowing full well what that meant. “Sorry. Uh, maybe we can refit the headsets so that they don’t pinch so much?”

“After I get back,” I agreed, still keeping the hard tone as I turned back to Attonius again and addressed him. “Like I said earlier, there are a lot more surprises here. These are another two brothers of mine, Sasha Vitaly and Feren Nova.”

“So you have dragons, dinosaurs, snakes, and tigers as relatives now,” Attonius mused aloud. “Now I am certain nothing else will shock me.”

“The method we’ll used to reach Rome will get us there by this evening, and that’ll shock you,” I returned. “Pun intended, as you’ll see.”

Attonius blinked, and hope returned to his eyes. “So you will come to help?”

”Like you I see no benefit from allowing an entire city to die,” I replied. “And if this man is looking for me, then it probably won’t end with Rome, if my experience is anything to go by.”

I turned to Hiccup. “Recall that dare Snotlout put me to about a month ago?”

“And you took him and circled the island in about two seconds flat?” he replied rhetorically. “If we’re traveling that way, anyone who is going is definitely gonna need some preparation.”

“You, Astrid, Ember, Cami, and your dragons. Get them all ready, and in the meantime I need to grab a couple of things from the house before we leave.” I then stood up, and pointed to the two cats and Zipeau. “You three are coming home to refit those com sets; Kingsley, you stay here and help keep an eye on our guests. And Zipeau, while we’re gone, step up the weapons arsenal.”

I turned to Attonius, a no-fuss look on my face. “Attonius, I intend to leave within two hours maximum; whoever needs to return with you to Rome, go with Hiccup. Otherwise everyone else will stay here at least until we return.”

I will do so,” Attonius promised. “No one else need return except for myself however, as a guide.”

“All the better. I’ll be back to the village as soon as I can.”

Sasha, Feren, and Zipeau followed me out of the hall, and climbed on as soon as I morphed. “So, who among our family is going with you guys?” Sasha asked curiously, almost eagerly. I shook my head however as we took off.

“I intend to keep all of you here,” I said, much to his disappointment. “The more people I try to transport at the same time, the slower the trip will be for all of us, so I’ll only be taking those whom I mentioned earlier. Besides, I need you guys here preparing for anything that may follow after this, and the fewer things we make known, the better.”

There was silence for a moment, save for the wind rushing by. “So, you believe that there will be something more coming,” Zipeau inquired. I nodded. “Yeah; if what the rest of us have been through is anything to go by, there’s something else brewing; this is only the warm-up.”

* * *

“Attonius, come with us,” Hiccup said, getting up and gesturing to Astrid and Ember as well. “Once we get Camicazi, we’ll need to pack up a few things, and we could use some tips for what to take; none of us have ever visited Rome before.”

They filed out the door and headed for a large double house overlooking the shipyard. When both the Thorston twins had married, due to their unique relationship (and shared dragon) Fishlegs and Tuffnut had managed to come together in order to build a joint household for both their families (and miraculously, Tuff had not managed to burn it down in the process). Four people (when Camicazi was on Berk) and three dragons lived there now, so the household was almost always bustling and loud.

Such was the case when they approached the front door. The yelling and squabbling of the twins echoed from inside the walls of the structure, various items falling over as they quarreled over some new unimportant issue.

“Oh, big surprise, they’re at it again,” Astrid muttered, readying to march straight in through the door and drag the pair out by their ears. A loud, piercing roar beat her to it however, and the quarrel silenced for a moment before the front door burst open, Stormfly and Barfbelch appearing each with a blond-haired Viking hanging from the dragons’ teeth by their shirts. Ruff and Tuff were unceremoniously deposited just past the doorstep, Stormfly towering over them and flushing deep red in frustration.

“You come in here at each other’s throats again one more time today, and I swear I’ll string you both up on the….”

The Mood Dragon’s words trailed off when she noticed the impromptu audience nearby. “Oh, uh, hi Hiccup, Astrid, Ember,” she greeted awkwardly. “Sorry for the mess,” she drawled then, glaring pointedly at the twins. “Here for Fishlegs again?”

“Actually, no, we’re here to find you and Cami,” Hiccup replied. “We’re leaving for Rome in a couple of hours, and Hawken picked out you guys to tag along with us.”

“Hey, why not us?” Tuffnut complained, standing up somewhat shakily.

“Because it’s rather taxing on Hawken how we’re going to travel, for one,” Hiccup explained, “and Tuff, we don’t know what it is we’re facing so it’s best not to take a whole lot of potential targets, and not to mention you guys are not exactly the best at keeping calm profiles in delicate situations like this.”

“But I-AHH!” Tuff’s retort was cut short by Stormfly’s tail smacking him squarely in the chest. “Oh I am hurt! I am very much hurt!” he complained, but the cry for attention was ignored. The Mood Dragon snorted, then turned back to the group and nodded.

“Cami’s a little preoccupied at the moment, but I’ll bring her as soon as I can,” she assured. “Where should we find you?”

“The plaza in front of the Great Hall,” Hiccup replied. “We’ll wait for Hawken there; he’s stopping by his house and then probably giving a talk to Amethyst and Toothless before we go.” He looked over his shoulder, up toward the hall where the two Night Furies were waiting for the coming discussion. “Oh, and tell her to bring her weaponry, as much as she can safely and preferably discretely fit on her.”

Stormfly started chuckling involuntarily and rolled her eyes. “You might be sorry you asked that,” she drawled, before turning and walking back into the house, followed by the twins’ Zippleback.

“She looks somewhat larger than when I met her,” Attonius commented, watching the dragon from whom he’d first heard human language spoken with curiosity.

Yeah, but otherwise she hasn’t changed much at all,” Astrid replied, hand on her hip. “Neither has her rider. After all, Cami ended up marrying _him_.” She jerked her thumb in Tuffnut’s direction, the twin in question having managed to start up another brawl with his sister right there in the dirt. “Aaand they’re back at it again,” she growled, hands curling. “Ruff! Tuff! Cut it out or I swear I will…!”

* * *

When I got home, Holly had finally arrived as well, and was scowling murderously at the paper that sat almost innocently in front of her on the table.

“Trouble with homework again?” I queried lightly, stepping aside to let Zipeau and the others pass by.

Holly nodded, and groaned, slumping forward. “I hate math,” she muttered.

“Well, don’t worry too much. It only gets harder from here.”

“Shut up.”

I chuckled as I turned and headed to my room, grabbing the three swords I didn’t already have stored away and dematerializing them as well, safely out of sight for the trip. I already had my staff stored away, and was wearing the specially-made coat, so all that was left was to head downstairs to make sure Zipeau was getting what he needed to ready, and grab some supplies.

The dinosaur was already at his bench when I came down the stairs, fiddling with a modified headset before he took it and set it on Sasha’s head, trying to adjust the object as best he could.

“Better?”

“A little, but it still squeezes on the ears,” the tiger complained.

“Better find a happy medium soon, as you’re going to be fitted with a lot more than just a headset shortly,” I remarked, drawing their attention. “Zipeau, once the headsets are dealt with, for everyone mind you, start setting them up with their armor. I know a lot of it is sitting in storage in the forge on Berk at the moment, but we need to make sure it all fits and works properly.”

I pointed then to the desk, where a modified gun lay as well. “And start producing things like that that everyone can handle; I know most of you can morph somewhat, so hand-held weapons should be fine, but Kingsley and Embron are going to need something a little different.”

“Is this all truly necessary Hawken?” Feren asked, sitting nearby.

I shrugged in response. “Until we actually visit this guy, whoever he is, I don’t know what is necessary. But, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. I don’t know how long we’ll actually be gone, but I don’t want to drag a conflict back to unprepared friends and family, especially since none of you have yet been in a war like the rest of us has.”

Silence returned for a minute, before Zipeau nodded and turned back to the desk, taking Sasha’s headset and already fiddling with it again. “Then best not to waste time,” he said. “You’d better hurry too; you still have to talk to the Night Furies before you leave.”

I nodded and turned, coat flaring out as I walked quickly back up the stairs and…almost right into my mother.

“Off to heaven knows where again?” she asked, not concealing her displeasure with my tendency to leave unbidden.

I winced. “Okay, but this is a big deal, something that I absolutely have to attend to; Rome is being held hostage by someone who apparently will deal with no one but me.”

“And how long is that supposed to take?”

“How should I know? Sorry, don’t mean to be snappy, and I plan to not be gone any longer than tomorrow evening, at worst Sunday, but things happen that no one can plan for. But this is exactly the sort of thing that I cannot ignore.”

My mother rubbed her forehead and sighed. “You know, this is really starting to become a burden, Hawken. You have a life here that needs keeping up on as well; you already missed part of school today, and you had that Honors event tomorrow, that may I remind you cost $20.”

“Are the lives of an entire city, possibly an entire continent, not worth $20? And may I also remind you that I was the one who paid for that?”

She nodded, still not entirely convinced. “I know, but I don’t know how long you can keep this up and expect to come off okay. The cost of a double life is going to catch up to you sooner or later, and your father and I cannot support you forever either especially when things start to get really expensive. You don’t even have a job that will keep up the cost of all this and you had $4500 in loans already stacked up”-

“Everything was paid off in full last year Mom!” I finally snapped, interrupting her. “And I have all that I need, even without ever worrying about having any sort of employment!”

She gave me an incredulous look. “Oh? How then do you support all this? Don’t think I never noticed all the supplies you’ve bought for Camicazi and company’s weddings, or everything Zipeau and Hiccup have been using.”

I opened my mouth to reply, before thinking better of it. I wasn’t going to be able to hide the secret away for much longer, so I decided it was time to at least show my family. I turned abruptly and headed to my room once more, pulling out of its hidden place the bag Odin had gifted to me over a year and a half before. Reaching in, I pulled out one of the smallest, but most valuable, of the gems it contained, before placing the bag back and taking the small stone with me.

“Hold out your hand,” I told my mom as I returned to the kitchen. Cautiously, she did, and I placed the gem in the palm of her hand. “I was gifted beyond measure some time back,” I explained. “I’m giving this part of the gift to you now, to try and help explain as well as pay back whatever I might owe you. It’s a quarter-carat red diamond, flawless; it should be worth a minimum of a quarter of a million dollars. Use it to pay for whatever you need to; house mortgage, cars, loans, whatever. You can explain it to Dad when he gets home too.”

With that, I’d taken enough time up already, and so I quickly turned and exited the back door, taking my supplies with me and leaving both my mother and sister (who was still sitting at the table) open-mouthed and speechless.

I knew there would be a long, long conversation about that surprise later, but for now I focused on my next task: figuring out what had happened with Amethyst. She and Toothless were still waiting for me outside the Great Hall, so as I came into the village I glided past them, gesturing for the pair to follow me as I headed back up into the forest. A small, secluded clearing was my destination, and as I landed and demorphed the two dragons came in behind me and landed carefully on the grass. Then I turned to Amethyst, and immediately she winced.

<Alright, what happened before I got here?> I asked pointedly. After a moment of silence, Toothless began to speak, but I cut him off before he got far. <No, I want to hear Achlema tell me,> I toned. Amethyst winced again; the only times I used her Hebrew name were introductions and when things were going to get very serious. She swallowed nervously, and slowly spoke up.

<I…I didn’t react very well when Eret was spotted offshore,> she said quietly. <I threatened him for returning, and almost took out the ship, before…before Hiccup and Toothless intervened. Eret said he was coming in peace, but I didn’t, and still mostly don’t believe him, not after what he did last time.>

She paused and looked at me for a reaction, and when I stayed silent she continued. <I, uh, I don’t like him being here, and I don’t trust him. I left the village afterward and Toothless found me, right when I was the most furious. I snapped at him, and then took it out on a log nearby. It…uh…> she trailed off, looking to Toothless for help explaining. I followed her gaze, and Toothless nodded in understanding.

<You know how Night Furies get when we’re really riled up,> he explained. <The split crests, the glowing scales, all that. Amethyst was in that state, and in her anger at not being able to deal with Eret or being able to let go of her rage, something…something else triggered.> He fixed me with the most serious look I had seen on him in a long time. <You said it seems that most of the Descendants seem to have picked up on some ability you have, the size changes mostly aside. Amethyst inherited your electrokinesis.>

The silence that followed was well-deserved. Amethyst was electrokinetic, explaining the sparks I had seen the first time we’d come against Eret on the north shore of Berk but had since forgotten about; we knew already that Night Fury fire had an odd, and explosive, reaction with electricity in general, so the pairing I naturally produced, or when Hiccup and Toothless both fired shots simultaneously, had incredible power. If Amethyst naturally had the same capacity now…

<That’s why Toothless was so concerned,> I concluded. <So when you let off your frustrations, an electric charged jumped with it and it did a whole lot more damage than it should have.>

Amethyst nodded sheepishly. <The one good thing about it was that it scared enough sense into me that I mostly calmed down,> she admitted. <Angry like that in the village and I could have seriously hurt one of our own, let alone Eret and company. But I don’t know how it happened.>

I mulled over the info for a moment, before fixing Amethyst with a serious look again. <I should have remembered to talk to you about it when we first met Eret; sparks were jumping between our crests when you got riled up then too, but it never made it into your fire. It’s past that point now though, so listen closely: Achlema Halailah Carlton, I have an assignment for you while I’m gone. You know where the barrens are on the western mountain slopes, so go there and practice; try to determine how you can control this, and learn how to use it smartly. If you are really like me you should be able to turn on the electricity and turn it off with just a thought.>

Amethyst nodded, assuring me she knew where I was talking about. The barrens were in a small valley that had been wiped clear by a fire in the mountains some years back, and kept that way by a series of landslides that had followed from the destabilized soils. With nothing but scraggly plants and rocks, it was a perfect place for dragons to practice fire and other abilities without risk to wildlife or the native foliage.

Practicing was not her only assignment though, and I gestured back in the direction of the village with my arm. <And, Achlema, before you give any protests, Eret will be staying here at least until we return. He’s been humble enough since he arrived to admit his faults, if his actions thus far and Hiccup’s relay are to go by, so you need to make an effort to forgive him.>

Unsurprisingly, Amethyst immediately moved to protest. <But I -!>

<If I retaliated against everyone how you did that tried to wrong me, sister, and I did so with the kind of power a Night Fury wields let alone everything else I can do, I would have become an outright murderer some fifty times over by now,> I growled, cutting her off as my eyes darkened. <Do you want to end up like that?>

An awkward silence ensured as Amethyst realized where she was heading again and hung her head. I sighed and softened up, kneeling down in front of her. <Amethyst, the Scriptures have many punishments for sin, several of them being death outright in one manner or other. But, they also have terms for forgiveness, most of which are able to override the punishments because people can admit they were wrong and try to change; if they do and we punish them anyway, then who is in the wrong then? Do you know why forgiving is stressed?> I asked. She shook her head, still silent.

<It’s not for the original sinner,> I said, < it’s for us, the ones who were wronged. Holding onto anger, the notions of revenge or resentments, we’d destroy ourselves from the inside out and drive ourselves mad and hollow. Those kinds of feelings are cages to ourselves, and I know this better than almost anyone.>

I reached out with a hand and lifted up Amethyst’s head, so that she looked straight at me. <Achlema, I have suffered a temper for years that I have tried not to let anyone see, and I’ve held grudges before. I got lucky, given a means of venting frustrations and clearing my head so that I could think straight some three and a half years ago, but I still fight every day sometimes to keep myself from lashing out at everything anyway. I don’t want to see you go through any portion of that either, alright? So you need to let this go, and move past the wrongs that are behind you.>

Amethyst didn’t move for a while, looking away and processing what I’d said. Then, she took in a deep breath and nodded, trying to disregard the tear that escaped her eye. <I’m sorry,> was all she could say, before leaning forward against me.

I smiled gently as I embraced her. <I’m not the one who needs the apologies right now, Achlema. I expect the two of you to have at least spoken cordially to each other once by the time I return.> Then I glanced from her to the other party present. <Come on, Toothless, let’s go.>

He nodded, and as soon as I had morphed again we both took off, leaving Amethyst alone to figure out her plan for the weekend.

<Gee, I knew you could occasionally have a temper, but I never pinned you as someone like that,> Toothless commented, looking at me with sympathetic eyes.

I smiled sadly. <Yeah, well, I’m a good actor too. And I’ve been working on it for a long time.>

Nothing else was said, and we soon landed back in the plaza, finding everyone that I’d requested gathered in waiting. Cami, unsurprisingly, was covered in various weapons and was looking almost excited about the upcoming trip. Attonius, on the other end of the spectrum, just looked on edge (though that could just have been from standing near Camicazi).

“Everyone ready?” I asked, receiving nods from the gathered. “Good. Okay, everyone join hands and keep a good grip on each other; dragons, link wings or paws and hold tight as well.”

“How exactly are we traveling?” Attonius asked warily, noticing the smirks he was getting from the others. I smirked as well, not helping his concern.

“Electricity moves at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour,” I explained. “I can’t quite go that fast, but I can move at a couple thousand or more for a time.”

“Electricity?”

“You’ll see.”

They all did as asked, though somewhat reluctantly in Attonius’ case, dragons standing behind the humans and everyone bunched up together while I moved to stand behind all of them. My arms stretched out wide as they morphed into the triple-split wings and spanned out over the whole group, and then I leaned forward, making contact. “Okay, as a warning you’ll probably feel a jolt at first,” I advised, “and you’ll find your grip to have locked in place. That’s good, as it means the links won’t break and we won’t drop anyone on the way. Ready?”

Without waiting for an answer, I powered up and static charges raced across the group, causing everyone to jump involuntarily. The scene gathered onlookers, including Eret and his crew, as the power increased and I began to glow. Constant streams of jittering light began pulsing around the group.

“Alright, taking off in 3…2…1…here we go!”

A surge of energy, and we all dematerialized, a bolt of lightning arcing upward and away from Berk and streaking across the sky. To anyone that was watching, it would have looked like one massive electric surge, but from our perspectives it was as if we were simply surrounded by glowing air, still holding hands (or paws) and taking in an incredible view of the sea and land passing rapidly by below.

“Aaaaaaaaahhhahahahaha!!”

I turned my head to see Attonius first screaming from the shock of the departure, and then he started laughing almost giddily. “This is incredible!!” he yelled, and I laughed in return.

“Yep, and we’ve got probably a couple of hours of travel,” I replied, “so enjoy it while it lasts! We’ll probably slow down the further we go!”

* * *

Eret jolted backward and nearly fell over in his surprise when the whole group disappeared within the lightning, the crack of thunder making him wince as the bolt streaked away, disappearing in the distance. He jolted again when the booming laughter of Stoick came up behind him.

“No matter how many times it happens, it’s still an impressive sight when Hawken takes off like that, am I right?” the chief asked, smiling knowingly.

Eret shrugged, trying to act nonchalant and failing. “I-I don’t think impressive is quite the right word for it, too small,” he responded. “How quickly will they get there?”

Stoick shrugged, pulling off a far more nonchalant attitude over the event. “Ah, well, none of them have ever tried traveling that far this way. But, I’d wager probably no more than a couple of hours, maybe three since it takes more energy the more people ‘e takes with him. They’ll probably be back sometime tomorrow too if all goes well.”

Eret’s eyes widened even further as he processed this. “That’s…that’s an impressive travel time,” he admitted. “Almost makes sailing seem obsolete were it more widespread. Oh, how foolish I feel now that I originally labeled him and the dragons no more than beasts once.”

“You were far from the only one, and not the most hard-headed about it from what I hear, so don’t be too hard on yourself.”

That voice immediately made the Sami freeze, especially with how close it emanated from. Slowly he turned his head to face the female Night Fury, who had come to stand next to Stoick and Thornado. She smirked slightly at the look, and nodded. “Alright, so I probably deserve that reaction from people now,” she said, before the smile fell. “Uh, listen, I want to get this over with as soon as I can so it doesn’t get more awkward with us being stuck here together, so…I’m sorry.”

It took a moment for Eret to process what Amethyst had just said, and even longer to try and think of a proper reply. Stoick glanced between the two during the ensuing silence, and then looked down at his Thunderdrum. “Well, we’ll, uh, leave you two here to figure that out,” he excused, before he and Thornado slipped away, leaving Eret alone in the plaza with Amethyst.

Eret fidgeted further for a moment, not feeling comfortable at all with being left alone with the Night Fury, before he finally looked awkwardly at the dragon. “Uh….so, you’re saying you’re sorry,” he said bluntly, and Amethyst forced herself not to roll her eyes as he continued. “I guess it’s more than reasonable to understand why you reacted how you did, and I was most certainly at fault from before, though I have to plead some ignorance on that since I was never taught different,” he defended. “But, uh, we’ve both been in the wrong, so we both probably need to say sorry.”

“You came here saying you were for peace and I was ready to sink your ship under you,” Amethyst countered. “This was after you were given a grilling already by my brother before, so I knew the issue should have been taken care of. I live with several people who stress giving others second chances, and I failed that one outright; I have to hold that now. So, I’m trying to make amends, and I’m asking if you will accept my apology.”

Eret pursed his lips in thought, before gesturing with his hand. “Well, you sound more than sincere, and I have to say sorry because I also don’t want to be on the bad side of an empowered Night Fury again either, so would it work if we simply let bygones be bygones and start with blank slates here?” He smiled cautiously, and extended a hand. “I…I don’t know if dragons give handshakes, but…”

Amethyst smiled slightly in return and extended her paw as well, morphing it slightly so she could grasp better. “I will on this occasion,” she said lightly, taking his hand and shaking it to seal the agreement.

Eret nodded, before looking around somewhat lost. “So, uh, I guess that I’m stuck here for a few more days at least; perhaps it would be best if I educate myself more on what dragons are really like. I don’t know if you, uh, would be willing to help me with that?”

Amethyst snorted. “Ironically, despite being a dragon I’m not the greatest to ask. You could always ask her, however, since she’s the most knowledgeable on the subject besides Hiccup.”

Eret followed the Night Fury’s gaze, turning around to find Valka giving him a knowing smile. “Oh, uh, hi.”


	17. When In Rome...

_“All in all, it really isn’t as great a place as everyone claims it to be. The average civilian populace acts entitled and stuck-up, not to mention the rank hygiene issues; of course I can only speak for the one version of Rome that I’ve been in. Oh, and by the way, ignore the advice of that old saying of theirs: when in Rome, do not do as the Romans do.”_

_~Hiccup, reflecting on our brief visit_

Western Europe surged underneath us in a blur, the coasts of Norway rapidly giving way to the North Sea, followed by Germania and Francium passing below. As energy-consuming as the means of travel was however, by the time we reached the edges of the Mediterranean Sea itself I was only moving at about three times the speed of sound, giving the whole group a clear view of a scene none of them had ever taken in before: a beautiful, crystal clear blue of the sea, bordered even at this time of year by a rich green-tinted patchwork of untamed forests, grasslands, and semi-civilized farmlands and towns along the coast.

The sun was setting the sky ablaze in a brilliant sunset as the Italian peninsula came into view, but with it however came a new issue. Evening was far too late a time to make our presence known to the city itself, so as I slowed our approach I turned to Attonius and gained his attention.

“Is there any place you know of that we can stay for the night, before we announce ourselves?” I asked. He nodded and, just as the edge of the city became visible to everyone, he gestured toward the northern end of the settlement.

“If you remember my explanation from earlier,” he began, “I and several of those who listened to the news I brought back from Berk were forced to find our own accommodations after the church disowned us. We built a modestly sized facility a few leagues north of the city itself, and it should be marked by a blue banner; all of us should be safe and undetected there for the night, and it appears there is a storm approaching so our arrival may be covered.”

I nodded and turned my eyes back toward the land ahead of and below us, scanning for the place he mentioned. Attonius was right about the storm as well: from the east a great thunderhead was rolling in from the warm sea, the winds of the front already blowing across the peninsula.

Soon enough I spotted the banner flapping in the wind, held high on a post in the courtyard of a fairly large stone construction, and I angled our trajectory down so that we came in low over the trees and landed right in front of the door, re-materializing and immediately being buffeted by the cloudburst.

Attonius moved first, letting go of Camicazi’s hand as soon as the static charge abated and rushing toward the door, knocking hard in a peculiar pattern. A few seconds later voices were heard inside, and the door swung open, revealing another face that I recognized immediately: Brutus, the former army general who had accompanied Attonius on his first visit to Berk.

“Attonius!” he exclaimed with great surprise. “We were not expecting you for at least another few weeks! How did you manage…?”

He trailed off when he spotted the rest of us standing in the wind behind Attonius, and his eyes widened further when they settled on me demorphing (save for my wings, which were left spread open to help block the wind).

“Oh. Oh! You…you managed to bring him here!”

“Yes, Brutus, but the details of that can be discussed momentarily,” Attonius deferred. “Right now we need to be let inside, and rooms set up, before”-

A crack of thunder cut him off, emphasizing his point. Brutus nodded in understanding, and stepped aside while Attonius waved for us to follow him through the torch-lit hall inside.

“We have built all this up over the past few years, both to support ourselves as a safe haven against the derision we’ve received as well as to provide refuge for those who need it, people and dragon. The latter are especially persecuted around here as you can imagine.”

He looked at me sadly. “After that lecture you gave us I decided to try and actually study the Scriptures, and realized just how much we had all missed, and how much is still missing from what we can access. Since then those of us here have worked to rectify those wrongs in as many ways as we can.”

We turned a corner, and were presented with several doors, each of them clearly designed to be secured from inside, and Attonius stepped forward and opened one, revealing a very large, sparsely furnished room.

“Our guest rooms,” he explained, “hopefully furnished well enough to be of comfort to all five of you, if somewhat more bare than you might be used to. And, there are separate quarters just down the hallway for dragons, unless you think they can fit with you and you are more comfortable with that option.” He tipped his head and bowed respectfully, and turned to leave. “I will meet you here again in the morning, once you are ready to head to the city,” he said, before heading down the hall in the direction we’d come, checking with others who had gathered out of curiosity and shooing them away.

“Well,” Ember began, looking around in the open room, “I guess this is the point where we pick our rooms and rest up for tomorrow. There won’t be much in the way of scouting the area for most of us tonight.” She glanced toward the window in the room, where rain was beginning to pound the primitive glass panes, before stepping into the room proper. “Lots of space in here actually; Orha, unless you want the separate quarters I’m sure you could fit as well.”

The Shadowracer stuck his snout inside and looked around as well, before nodding. “I think I’ll stay here, just to be safe,” he agreed.

“Well, you’re the largest, so that answers the question of if the rest of our dragons will fit,” Cami said, walking toward another door. I, meanwhile, nodded in agreement as well before clearing my throat.

“Alright, everyone, as soon as you get up let’s meet in the courtyard unless Attonius is already waiting here. And from here on out, dragons?”

They all looked at me, and I fixed them with a serious look. “We want the Romans, and this mystery character, to know as little as possible,” I explained, “so unless otherwise necessary, from this point on speak Dragonese only, those of you who have the option.”

<Got it,> they all agreed. The Vikings however looked a little concerned.

“Uh, what if we get separated at some point?” Astrid asked. “Okay, so I know my dragon is the one dragon here who doesn’t speak English anyway, but for the others what if they need to communicate?”

“I don’t know about you, but I for one don’t plan on splitting up,” Hiccup replied.

“And even if we do get separated you’re the only other one here who speaks Dragonese, so what do you have to worry about?” Cami pointed out.

“Guys, you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be,” I interrupted. “If we get separated, then yes, those who need to can speak English though I’d prefer it be kept to whispers then, so it’s not that big of a concern. I just want to try and keep an upper hand for as long as we can. I, too, have no plans to split up; we don’t know exactly what it is we’re facing here, and we’re strongest as a team. We will stay together.”

I turned and headed for the room closest to the entrance we’d come through. “I don’t know about you, but I certainly need some rest before tomorrow. We all need our energy, and traveling as a lightning bolt with passengers takes a lot of stamina. So, knock if there’s an emergency, but otherwise, halailah tov.”

I stepped into my chosen room and closed the door after that, hearing the others outside do the same shortly afterward one by one, before I looked around. There was a bed frame with some sort of stuffed leather mattress upon it, and thin blankets with a woven quality, as well as a small window like as was in Ember’s room looking out into what I assumed was the courtyard, where flashes of light from the storm played across barely visible planted trees.

A torch sat unlit on one wall (with Night Fury vision I didn’t need it anyway), and there was a small desk with a hand-bound book sitting on it next to the bed. Curious, I walked over and picked it up, opening to a random page.

It was a Bible, handwritten in a somewhat unfamiliar dialect of English (or as was called in that world, common-tongue) and in almost scribbled cursive but still legible to me. It appeared to contain most of the New Testament as well as a fair portion of the Old; surmising that chapters and pages were missing because whoever wrote it did not have access to knowledge of the full Scriptures, I realized it was likely Attonius and his colleagues themselves who had written these in an attempt to spread more of the full message to anyone who could read, rather than the bits and pieces the Church likely often provided (if you cannot access all the information, easier for someone else to tell you how to think).

“I’ll have to remember to give him a full copy,” I mused to myself, smiling and putting the little book down before unloading my weapons and supplies onto the desk next to it and heading toward the bed. The next day would almost certainly need a long one, and despite being part dragon I was going to need a full night’s sleep.

* * *

“You going to lay there all day, or meet the others like we’re supposed to?”

Hiccup groaned and rolled over, trying to ignore the reptile hovering over him. “Toothless, remember what…what Hawken said yesterday?” he muttered sleepily.

The Night Fury rolled his eyes sarcastically in response. <I thought that since we’re in private quarters it wouldn’t matter, but very well,> he huffed. <And, if you don’t get up I will get you up, forcefully.>

The Viking on the bed turned and glared at the dragon. “Can’t you give me just five minutes?” he complained. “It was a long trip.”

In response, Toothless leaned over, put his nose up to Hiccup’s, and burped in his face. The hot, fishy air blasted into Hiccup’s nostrils, rapidly destroying any and all remaining hopes of his getting any more rest along with several unfortunate nose hairs.

“Eecchhhh!! Alright, alright, I’m up!” Hiccup gagged. “Eww, jeez Toothless, do you ever wash your mouth?!”

<As often as you do, though I hear there is a reason for the term ‘morning mouth.’>

“Dragon breath is also a well-defined term. Maybe I should feed you field mint in place of fish.”

Noting the dragon’s look, Hiccup held up his hands in defense. “Kidding, okay? And yes, I’m getting up, good grief. Give me a minute to clear the nausea you just caused, and I might be able to stand.”

A couple of minutes later, the duo stepped out of their room to find a near-empty, silent hall. Only Astrid was present, leaning against the wall by her door and sharpening her axe. As they came out, she looked up and smirked.

“Well, look who finally decided to grace us with their presence,” she drawled with an exaggerated tone, standing up and slinging her axe back behind her into its holder.

Hiccup snorted. “Look, Toothless already gave me all the lecture I needed; why is everyone around here an early bird? And where is everyone?”

“Out in the courtyard. They’re having breakfast in the nicer weather that’s come in while they wait for you, and they’ve been speaking with Attonius and the other locals. This is apparently more unusual an incident than we’d thought, and that’s saying something.”

She turned and started down the hallway in the direction of the dragon stables. “Best not to keep everyone waiting any longer. Come on, you two.”

* * *

Conversation halted for a moment when we heard the door to the courtyard open, and I turned to see Astrid exit the building, followed by our two late risers (well, Toothless almost certainly wouldn’t leave Hiccup willingly, so I suspected one late riser and one reluctant guard, knowing how the dragon was most mornings).

“Well, well, it’s about time you two,” I drawled, smirking. “Toothless, Attonius has a basket of fish over there for you, and Hiccup, if you hurry Cami _might_ leave you some fruit this time.”

Hiccup gave me a deadpan glare, before moving to the nearby table. “Okay, so what all did we miss?” he asked huffily, grabbing an apple right before Camicazi did and snatching one of the fresh pastries that had also been offered.

“One of Attonius’ colleagues was conveying info earlier, claiming that no one even now knows the man’s name, and they’ve only caught glimpses of the creature that he arrived with,” Ember explained. “That is, unfortunately, about all we have to go on; he never stays in the same place at night, always a new house or inn, and his companion hides out somewhere east of the city. No other threats or claims have been issued either, or overheard.”

“We were starting to go over the layout of Rome when you finally decided to join us,” Cami continued, smirking triumphantly at Hiccup’s glare now leveled at her. “The palace of the Emperor, and this place called ‘Vatican’, are only a few streets apart near the city’s center, surrounded by bath houses and entertainment of all sorts, basically the cultural epicenter. The market sits nearer to the coast, housing is scattered more to the edges of the city in all directions, and there are a lot of supposedly shady and run-down areas along the southern edge where the guy might stay, but so far the claim is he’s avoided that region. In any case, it’s a lot of space to cover.”

The blonde sighed and sat back in her chair. “Since we’re not planning on splitting up there’s no way we’re covering the city very rapidly, so we’ll have to publicly spread word of our being here. Supposedly gossip and city guards will do that for us.”

Hiccup took a bite of the pastry and chewed thoughtfully. “So, uh, what do we do while we’re waiting to meet this guy then?” he asked. The rest of us shrugged in though, before Attonius offered the only really viable option.

“I can take you around the city itself,” he said. “You can see what there is to offer here, perhaps be ready and somewhat used to the region if something goes wrong. I know not everything will be to your tastes here, especially as most of it is unappealing to me now as well, but perhaps your presence here may help start things in the right direction toward fixing the issue.”

I cocked an eyebrow, before looking to the others for their opinion. “Well,” I began, “better than finding a bench and sitting around doing nothing. Everyone?”

A unanimous vote came from both people and dragons, so the decision was settled. After a few more minutes to allow Hiccup and Toothless to finish their breakfast (at the expense of teasing from the rest of us of course), we gathered our gear and moved out, starting down the road to Rome rather than trying to fly in. I kept my long-coat on for display and the staff Hiccup had made in my hand, with everything else dematerialized and stored away so that I would hopefully come off looking eccentric but not an immediate threat; Astrid, Camicazi, and the dragons would take care of that part.

As we approached the outskirts of the city, I spotted a guard tower along the road; sure enough, soon we attracted the attention of the first city guards. Dressed in suits stitched together from overlapping layers of leather and metal, with helmets situated on their heads bearing tall, almost feathery crests, they marched out onto the road ahead of us as if to prepare an impromptu border check. Every one of them held a spear at the ready as well, and they clearly held no trust for people who walked peacefully alongside dragons.

“Brace yourselves,” I cautioned quietly. Sure enough…

“Come no further!” the lead guard warned. “We allow no demons here alive!”

Broad-shouldered, fit, and bearing a head of short brown hair under his helmet, he reminded me immediately of when I first met Brutus (who had since grown his hair out rather extensively). The man swept his hand toward us in dismissal. “If you have business here, then first lead those beasts away from…Attonius?!”

The former bishop had stepped out in front of us, wearing what I assumed was his least-torn robe and looking sternly at the guard.

“Let me guess, no one has expected me to return for some time, if at all,” Attonius drawled. “You recall my words when I last returned from the northern archipelagos, Percival?”

“Yes, and I also clearly recall the Church throwing you and your heretic colleagues out of the city dwellings for your blasphemy.”

“It will be said again then that the Church is wrong, as I know I’ve stated that several times,” Attonius returned. “Those with the power are not always those who are right. The dragons will be entering the city with the rest of us, otherwise our other guest’s threat will likely be carried out.”

That proclamation caused the guard to stumble for a moment, though the rest of the men with him didn’t move. “Now hold on for just a moment,” he began, holding up a finger, “one of these people is the dragon boy the man is looking for?” His eyes bounced between Hiccup and I as he said this suspiciously.

I smirked and spun the staff in my hand, grabbing his full attention. “That would be me,” I introduced. “Hawken Carlton, man of faith, friend of dragons, and ally of the island of Berk and their friends. I was told this visitor you have had here for several months may be a matter of great concern, so I listened to Attonius when he asked for my help and came here. However, it seems that you all have far less respect for Attonius than you should, for all that he’s tried to do for you, so I wonder if we should just leave you to the mercy of your current threat, hmm?”

I had continued walking forward slowly as I spoke, until I was right at the point of Percival’s lowered spear, and though he’d been put off guard by us, and my forward actions, he apparently still held some amusement at both our appearance and my brazen attitude.

“You? You’re the one the stories speak of?” he asked, before beginning to chuckle. “Oh, my my, rather a small stature for such tall tales; how many of them are stretching the truth?” His jovial expression fell after that, and turned more serious again. “Very well, on the off chance you’re telling the truth I’ll let you, Attonius and your friends here pass, but the demons you came with must stay”-

My staff swept upward without warning and caught the metal blade of the spear, the blunt ear of the Night Fury design on top embedding in the metal and carving a deep rut through the steel. Percival, unsurprisingly, stumbled back in surprise as his men moved to surround me.

“That was a warning shot,” I growled. “The dragons go with us, period, and if you have reservations about that then I will flatten you all here and now and we will continue into the city unhindered anyway, do you understand?” I gestured to the ruined spear which they all only now began to notice the damage on. “A blunt edge did that to your weapon; do you really want to see what a proper blade of ours can do? Or perhaps a Night Fury’s fire? I’m sure those tales are widespread as well.” On cue, Toothless gave a deep snarl, stepping forward with his wings hooded outward.

Percival shook his head in defeat. “V-very well,” he stammered. “J-just go in; we’ll send a messenger to find who you’re looking for.”

I nodded, sweeping my staff up and knocking away the other guard’s spears without giving them opportunity to react, before stepping forward again. “Alright, come on guys,” I said, looking back at our group. “Oh, and Percival?”

He looked at me with now anxious eyes, and I drilled him with a look.

“I would strongly suggest you and the rest of this city start being a little more welcoming to the other sentient races of this world, otherwise I may well end up being the next threat to your coveted lifestyles here; death is not part of my intent, but I have no issues ruining someone’s day.”

I turned again toward the city’s entrance, and hid a snicker in doing so as Stormfly smacked Percival “accidentally” with her tail as she passed him. Then as a group, we entered the beginnings of the city proper. Mostly houses, a few market stalls, and as we walked onward our strange little posse began garnering stares and whispers, many of them fearful. A crowd began gathering in the side streets as we moved toward the heart of the city, following us as we traveled. I looked toward Attonius, who simply nodded; word would definitely spread very quickly of the dragon riders in Rome, far faster than we would cover ground.

One of the first things I truly noticed about the whole place was the smell. Unlike the world I lived in, or even Berk in the last couple of years, Rome had almost no proper indoor plumbing, so the atmosphere reeked constantly and quite tangibly of stale urine. It didn’t hit just me and the sensitive-nosed dragons either, who I quickly caught wrinkling their snouts.

“Phew! I feel like I just walked into Gobber’s outhouse,” Astrid groaned, looking around at the gutters along the sides of the streets with disgust.

“Well, they don’t exactly have access to the blueprints Hawken gave us for indoor plumbing, do they?” Hiccup remarked. “Though, I guess that doesn’t help to lessen the disgust factor in any way.”

Attonius smirked slightly at the odd conversation, and took the lead. “Follow me then,” he suggested. “It is not so bad among the buildings of the main metropolis. This is within one of the housing sections after all; the city officials keep the regions of the Vatican, the palace, and the spheres of entertainment and business in far better condition.” He turned and headed down the street again, the rest of us falling in behind him.

* * *

Three hours passed quite slowly, meandering through the metropolis, and still no word came from the reason why we had traveled here. Several times we felt compelled to pull wandering guards aside and inquire of the situation, only to get a general reply along the lines of, “He sends for things when he’s ready, and keeps his actions hidden otherwise.”

Needless to say, we were all getting a little impatient, and with impatience, combined with angst over a possibly threatening situation, came irritation. The sights we were viewing were impressive, yes: the architecture of the Vatican City (the present pope was not enthused about our presence, but he dared not speak against us while we were within earshot at least), the painted landscape placed around the palace of the Emperor of the city , and even the amount of work it must have taken to build the Coliseum (kept up to date and fully furbished in this world) was breathtaking, and we all took interest in these things we’d never seen. But, the nagging worry in the back of all our minds kept us on edge, and I was beginning to become concerned that something was going to set one of us off early.

It happened as we entered the marketplace region. I was standing with the dragons as the others meandered about the small plaza, looking at the handful of stalls that had been set up along the perimeter. Hiccup and Astrid had been drawn to some artistic wares, and Cami and Ember, guided by Attonius, were perusing past the food stalls and heading in the direction of a dealer of weapons and metal crafts.

After a few minutes, a well-off looking man with short hair and a thin, almost sculpted appearance like that of a truly wealthy merchant waltzed into the plaza. He headed for a very large stall that had up to that point been closed down, and I assumed he was the owner. Following him was a small procession of people, many of them with darker skin tones than the rest of the populace and dragging with them carts and shouldered baskets of meticulously crafted table wares; all of them bore nearly identical forlorn, helpless expressions.

Suddenly, one of them stubbed their toe on an uneven section of cobblestone and tripped, sending the basket they held to the ground and the silver-lined cups and vases within clanging across the hard ground. Immediately the merchant halted, before whirling around and advancing menacingly toward the young man. With the basket off I now noticed more easily the ragged state of the latter’s clothing, and the scars that crossed his upper arms, but more so I saw how he immediately cringed as the stall owner came up to him.

“You fool!” the merchant yelled, reaching out and slapping the slave. “Do you have _any_ idea how much those cost? You may have ruined my wares with your clumsiness!”

“I-I am sorry, I just tripped,” the younger man whimpered, scrambling to try and pick up what had spilled. His master scoffed.

“You tripped. I did not purchase you in order to hear pathetic excuses; I bought you so that you would do the job that I wished for you to do! This will be made up after we are done here today; you shall spend this evening polishing every single one!”

The slave’s eyes widened in shock and fear. “B-but master, that is the only time that I”-

He was cut off by another slap to the face as the irate merchant grew more incensed. “Silence!” the man yelled. “You belong to me; what you do with your time is decided by me! Let this be a lesson for your talking back,” he growled, and drew from his pocket a small, coiled whip, letting the cord fall to hang in front of the slave, the multiple metal tips glinting in his eyes. Then he reared back, preparing to bring the whip down on the slave.

“HEY!!”

I’d been about ready to jump in myself; slavery as we know it is wrong on more levels than I can count, especially when the people involved were treated like rats. But, I was not the one that yelled out.

Astrid beat me to it, marching toward the merchant with storm clouds forming in her blue eyes. “Who the hell do you think you are?” she snapped. “Striking another man for something as pointless as tripping? What is wrong with you?” As she slowed, one hand inched halfway back toward her axe. “I am certain you have done worse things with no harm done in the end,” she continued, moving to stand directly between the two men and facing off with the merchant.

The whip in the man’s hand had slackened in surprise, but now he put it away and began reaching for the blade at his side. “That slave is my property, you wench,” he growled back. “I do what I want with”-

“What. Did. You. Just. Call. Me?!” Astrid said slowly, each and every word growing sharper, axe now no longer on her back but in hand and under the man’s throat so fast I’d barely seen it move. “First off, that is a human being,” she hissed. “He is ‘owned’ by no one on earth! Second, you dare to call me that again and I’ll remove your arm.”

A spark lit in the businessman’s eye. “You dare to threaten me, woman?” he spat. “I am Ralen Levarius, the most prominent dealer for metalsmiths far and wide, and,” he whipped out his blade and used the flat to swipe the axe away from his throat, “master swordsman. Mind your own business before _I_ cripple you and leave you to the authorities to clean up the mess for overstepping my rights.”

“No man has the right to own another,” Camicazi stepped in, spinning out two of her own blades. “And you are talking to Camicazi Thorston and Astrid Hofferson, two of the most skilled warriors in all the Barbaric Archipelago, and riders of dragons.”

On cue, Thorn and Stormfly moved to stand protectively behind their riders, wings wide and teeth bared. Astrid grinned at Ralen’s faltering expression, and twitched her axe, the Mysteel blade cleaving off the upper half of his sword.

“Mark _our_ words, Ralen,” she said lowly, “this man, and the rest of your ‘slaves’ will not be called as such any longer, and you would do wisely to learn some proper human decency and keep your temper in check before I lose mine!”

Ralen vibrated with fury, held in check only by the fact alone that he now had no clue what the two women were capable of. After all, Astrid’s axe had just ruined his sword like it was bad butter.

Unfortunately, this conflict had quickly attracted more of a crowd than we had already garnered, and that included several well-armed guards. They rushed in to Ralen’s defense, surrounding Cami and Astrid as well as their dragons.

“Drop your weapons and raise your hands in the air!” one ordered.

“As if!” Cami scoffed. “I’m not putting my swords on the same ground this _rat_ walks on!” To emphasize her point, literally, she gestured her blade toward the merchant.

“Do not disrespect me in such a manner!” Ralen spat, throwing his now-useless sword to the ground and pulling out a dagger. Astrid moved forward to destroy this weapon as well, before the spear-point of the nearest guard distracted her, blocking her way.

At this point Ember decided that she would also step in, drawing her bow as Orha flared his wings behind her and snarled. “I support my sisters in this,” she announced. “This sickening slave business ends here and our weapons will be staying in our hands. Yours may or may not depending on your actions,” she warned.

Hiccup caught my eye, and gestured to the growing scene of tension around us, a blatant look of “Do something!” on his face. I nodded, and moved forward myself, knowing full well this was not going to sort itself out this time, just as Ralen set off the awaiting disaster. He moved away from Astrid and threw his dagger at Ember, who shot the blade out of the air before nocking another arrow and drawing a bead on the man in one swift move. The guards leapt toward Astrid and Cami as well, intending to forcibly disarm them while the dragons reacted in turn, Nadder spines and streams of fire sweeping through the plaza, causing further chaos as civilians dove out of the way and the slaves scrambled to move the wares they carried safely out of the way of the fight.

“ALRIGHT, THAT IS ENOUGH!!” I yelled, the strength of my voice drawing every eye and silencing the scene; being able to bellow like a Thunderdrum has its privileges. Those who did not stop at that did so when I slammed my staff into the ground, an energy pulse shattering the cobblestone underneath it like it was Styrofoam and sending a deafening CRACK! through the air.

Ember, Cami, and Astrid’s eyes all snapped to me in surprise, and everyone else stared on in anger. Ignoring the hateful looks, I strode forward, my coat billowing out around me as my eyes flashed a deep, warning yellow.

“My god, it’s like corralling a bunch of spoiled cats here!” I exclaimed. “Alright, you’ve all met my friends here; you will be even less happy about meeting me.” Turning, I made a point to try and address as much of the crowd as possible while leaving Ralen and the guards well within my sight.

“I am Hawken Carlton, the dragon-gifted that you called upon to meet with the threat you currently face. I and my friends are here to neutralize that threat, and should any of you get it into your heads the thought of restraining us in a manner that would prevent our doing so, we will leave and let that man do exactly as he wishes to Rome, and we will not look back once.”

I swung to face the guards directly, who had already begun to back away from the girls as they began to catch the drift of what we were really capable of; clearly everyone had heard at least one story about the dragon man. “You all _will_ drop your weapons, not us, and you _will_ listen to us and instead enforce this next proclamation.” Now I turned to Ralen, who still held that infuriating entitled expression on his face, and my eyes darkened to storm gray.

“Tell me, Ralen, do you consider yourself a believer, a Christian, under the church here?” I asked.

He snorted. “Of course I do. Nearly all of Rome’s citizens”-

“Then you are either a liar, a fool, or both.”

Oh, that incensed him beyond belief. “What did you say?!” he practically squealed.

“You are no true follower of Christ, otherwise these events that have just occurred would _never_ have been given opportunity to occur,” I said, smirking when he reared back and tried to punch me, only to have his hand caught an inch from my face and wrenched painfully to the side.

“Let me finish,” I advised pointedly. “Your culture has allowed the twisting of the Scriptures, to such a point as you have branded the Old Testament slaves to mean the same thing as this depravity you support today. Servants, they were once, even only for a time of up to seven years before they were required to have been freed or forgiven of debts, unless they decided to stay in their master’s custody and become _family_. One would expect that you would treat a family member with respect, with love, and mercy, that you would treat them well. Do you mean to tell me that whipping a man for tripping on a stone is somehow fitting into that?”

I turned to the crowd, still holding Ralen’s fist in such a manner that he could not move without my allowing it. “You know the name Jesus, Yeshua as he was called from birth. Did he not tell you to ‘love thy neighbor as yourself’?”

A hushed murmur ran through the gathered people, before several heads nodded meekly. I nodded my head as well, before yanking Ralen by his hand and dropping him roughly in front of the slave he had been about to publicly whip. “Where a person is born does not matter, there is not but a skin-deep difference between you and him. He is your neighbor; HOW then is this love?! This is a human before you, someone with the potential to be your equal, your superior, yet you treat him as if he were the dirt on your shoes! Should anyone deserve to be a slave as you see them it is _you_ , Ralen, for the attitude you carry toward those around you. And it ends here!!”

I shoved Ralen’s hand away, making him skid backward on the ground, and then reached down, picking up one of the broken stones off the street.

Immediately Ralen backpedaled, thinking that I was preparing to use it on him (after my Biblical rant, it was not that far-fetched that I might turn to the topic of stoning in his mind I’m sure), but instead I turned toward the slave, kneeling down and letting my eyes soften to a deep blue.

“What is your name?” I asked gently. The man looked at me in shock, as if never having imagined someone speaking to him with kindness.

“M-Martin, sir,” he said. I smiled gently and cupped the rock in my hand, covering it with the other and focusing, before offering it to Martin.

“Here. Take this.”

Martin gave me a confused look, but held his hands out anyway, his eyes widening considerably further when I dropped not a piece of sandstone, but a flawless sapphire into his hands.

“You no longer have need to bend to the whims of another, but to be your own master,” I said. “Use this to help you and the other former slaves here build a proper life for yourselves, secure and surrounded by family.”

Martin’s mouth worked silently for a moment, before a genuine smile ran across his face and he leapt up, embracing me. “Thank you Hawken!” he exclaimed, stepping back and looking me in the eye, tears falling. “I…I have not been able to see my family for weeks, but now I will not need to be away but for hours!” He turned and gestured to the other men with him, who set down their baskets, packs, and carts, and followed Martin out of the plaza in a great hurry.

“H-How did you do that?” Ralen suddenly piped up, finally coming out of his shocked stupor. “And what am I supposed to do now, huh? You have just stolen thousands of coins’ worth of property from me, and”-

“They were _never_ your property, they were people,” I interrupted, eyes darkening again as I stood up and turned around. “And I did that in the same manner that I can enforce on my own that no one here owns slaves in such a manner again. As for you, you can earn your keep through your own hard work rather than profiting freely off the labor of others, as it should be.”

“And how do you intend to enforce this, hmm?” he prodded. “After you’ve gone, what keeps me from taking the sapphire you gave them for myself and making them all slaves again?”

I scowled and stood up straighter, holding the staff out in front of me. In a flash, it dematerialized, stored away safely. “Do you know why it is exactly that they call me the dragon man, among other things?” I asked rhetorically. “It’s not just because I hang around with the Dragon Riders of the Viking world; after all, Hiccup is the Dragon Whisperer. Nor is it because I now carry a staff with a Night Fury emblem on it. _This_ is why.”

A pair of wide, pitch black wings erupted from my back, stretching up and over the heads of the gathered crowd and making them cringe. “I have the powers, the abilities of dragons at my hand,” I explained. “I will _know_ if Martin and his colleagues are taken in again; in fact, I will make sure to send them away from here so that they cannot be. And the next person whom I find with slaves they mistreat will be branded for it, and believe me when I say that.” I held my hand up and fire ignited around it, swirling menacingly. “After all, I have firepower enough to level Rome myself.”

I extinguished the flame and leaned down inches away from Ralen. “Have I made myself clear enough yet?” I inquired. A moment of stillness, and then he nodded vigorously as I stood up again and faced the guards. “And how about you, the ones who enforce the laws of this city? I work for a power far higher than your religious figures, your emperor, and His laws are those I will enforce. Have I made it clear enough that this behavior is absolutely unacceptable, and will I find a tolerance for dragons here, or will I have to return again someday to deal with that issue as well?”

One of them made a move to speak, but before anyone could get a word out, another young guard likely no older than 17 burst into the plaza, breathless and his blond hair frazzled from what appeared to have been a fairly decent run.

“I…I beg …I beg your pardon,” he gasped, trying to catch his breath as he addressed me, “but the man sent…sent me to bring you to him, sir.”

I blinked at the unexpected turn, and folded away my wings before turning and nodding to the others, who all stepped in behind me. Then I looked at the guard expectantly. “Well, lead the way then,” I said. “The sooner this is done, the better. For all of us,” I growled, looking around in warning.

We snaked through the streets, heading eastward through another portion of the market district (and luckily at one point we ran into another of Attonius’ associates, who was given the message to help gather the now former slaves of the city and take them to the safe house to the north) before we entered a darker part of the city. A few houses and run-down looking pawn shops were scattered here and there, but the streets were now lined mostly with what were clearly less tasteful business like taverns, brothels, and other less-than-charming facilities.

“So much for him avoiding the shady parts of the city,” Ember remarked as we walked along. Toothless made the mistake of sticking his nose into the entrance of one of the buildings as we passed by, before recoiling rapidly, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

<Ugh, well I am certainly glad that whatever substance is burning in there hasn’t found its way to Berk,> he grumbled.

I smirked, and caught Hiccup giving the same expression as me. “Yeah, tobacco isn’t the most pleasant, nor healthiest, thing to inhale,” I drawled, making our temporary guide look back at me oddly, almost certainly wondering who the heck I was talking to, before he decided better than to ask and focused ahead again.

Soon we approached a moderately large tavern with an unrecognizable name plastered across the doorframe in Latin: “Arce Viator est Scriptor.” Unfortunately, Fishlegs wasn’t here so we did not have our recently christened automatic translator with us, but we did have Attonius, who apparently immediately recognized the place.

“How appropriate, Traveler’s Keep,” he muttered. “One of the shadiest businesses in Rome; few if any of their customers are very lawful in any manner.”

The guard halted in front of the door, clearly on edge, before stepping aside and gesturing inside. “He told me to have you go in alone,” he said. “The dragons won’t all fit either so they will have to stay out here, but I was explicitly instructed no to enter with you; my apologies.”

I quirked an eyebrow, before looking at the others. “Alright, this is it then. People, come with me; dragons, fan out and keep a close eye on anything and everyone in the area, as we don’t want any surprises.”

They nodded, and Orha faded from sight to the shock of the spectators that were still even here gathering in our vicinity, before the other dragons moved out around the facility. Then, I and the riders pushed open the door and walked in carefully, hands on our weapons (or in my case, ready to materialize one).

Unsurprisingly the air hung heavily with smoke and the lighting was very dim, what little illumination there was cast only by the handful of flickering lamps hung about and the candles that sat precariously on some of the central tables. Only a handful of patrons were present, drowning themselves in what I readily assumed were various alcoholic beverages, and the sides of the building were cast in mostly shadow that I was having trouble peering into thanks to the hazy atmosphere.

I saw Cami, Astrid and Ember all grab the handles of their weapons firmly, while Hiccup held his hands at his sides, ready to grab any of the weapons he deemed fit for the situation.

“I don’t like the looks of this place one bit,” he muttered. I nodded in agreement, feeling a distinct dark presence in the air.

“Well, it’s certainly not the nicest of establishments around, but the location is convenient for the need,” an out of place and almost jovial sounding voice echoed from one dark corner. “I’m not one for unwanted surprises and this keeps most of those away.”

We all whipped around, Astrid and Cami drawing swords and Ember nocking an arrow on her bow while my mind began to spin from shock.

See, I knew that voice, remembered it quite distinctly from several years prior. There was no way that it was possible, but I knew that voice.

“Oh, there’s no need for that kind of reaction, I assure you,” the man said again. “Come, take a seat, there’s plenty of room here.” He held out his hand and gestured to the empty seats, and as we cautiously drew closer, my eyes confirmed the impossible thing my ears had already heard.

Sitting in a makeshift booth with a glass of something dark and clearly not just water on the table in front of him, and dressed impeccably in an immaculate set of clothing consisting of a pair of black satin pants, dark red buttoned shirt, and velvet vest, was Malin.

Jonathan C. Malin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's baaaack...


	18. Dark Hearts

_Danger wears what pleases the eye_

_Death will weave a lifelike lie_

_Horror trills alluring calls_

_For unwary hearts to answer and fall_

_Follow not deception’s plan_

_Do not heed the shadowed man_

_Tell apart the truth and lies_

_Answer Yah, not Satan’s cries_

“What the hell are you doing here?!” I snapped, hand going behind my back as if I were readying to pull a hidden weapon out.

Malin held up his hands placatingly, but his expression held a smirk. “Really?” he toned. “That’s the reaction you give to me after all of these years? I’m hurt.” He put on a faux face of distress, before leaning back in his seat.

“Uh, forgive me if I missed something really important here, but, uh: Hawken, you know him?” Ember asked, eyebrow rising in confusion. “If so, who is he?”

I closed my eyes for a moment before addressing my friends, while not taking my eyes off the character in front of me.

“Astrid, Hiccup, recall about three years ago when some lunatic up and tried to kidnap me?” I asked rhetorically. “Meet the lunatic. Everyone, Jonathan Malin.”

Malin sighed and nodded as everyone else’s expressions hardened again. “Alright, I will admit that was not my brightest moment. However, I was hoping that we could have the opportunity here to move past that and start with a cleaner slate.” He gestured again to the chairs around the booth. “Please, take a seat. I know you probably don’t drink, but you’re free to order anything here, on me.”

“No thanks,” Cami voiced for all of us, even as we carefully sat down, level with Malin but still cautious to keep all weapons at our disposal. Malin clasped his hands then and leaned over the table, ensuring that we all could hear him even if he did not wish the rest of the establishment to.

“First of all, I have to say, Hawken, that I would have never guessed on my own that this was to be where you gained your powers from,” he mused. “An entire world separate from our own, with the characters from that dragon movie as actual people here.” He nodded, smiling, as he looked at each of my friends in turn. “Hiccup, Astrid, how pleasant to meet you in person. I would expect that you have some of your pets nearby as well?”

“Call them that again and you’re likely to see first-hand what Nadder fire can do,” Astrid shot back.

Malin nodded and conceded. “Oh, I see. They’re something more than that. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, considering what everyone knows about your friend here.”

I drummed my fingers against the table, nails sharpening to produce a rapping noise that ensured everyone at the table knew I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, and Malin sighed again. “Okay, very well I’ll get to the point: Hawken, I drew you here because I am in need of your help. I”-

“Alright, I’m going to stop you right there,” I interrupted. “You took an entire city hostage in order to lure me here, and don’t deny your actions to do so; we saw the rubble of that first bath house that your friend I keep hearing about destroyed. And, not only did you once kidnap me, but you were taken into custody with absolutely no intention to regret your actions. What possibly makes you think that I would be willing to _help_ you?”

“I took this city hostage because desperate times call for desperate measures,” Malin explained. “I don’t know myself where Berk is, let alone do I think you would let me on that island without my explaining myself first so I needed a neutral meeting place, and I knew you would not be terribly open to the idea of even talking to me, not without something major to persuade you; would you have come here if Rome was not in some sort of real danger?”

At my silence, he continued. “Plus, I know at least a little of what you’re like: you hold others above yourself, so you would take nearly any measure to keep even those you don’t know personally out of risk. You’re also a forgiving person, or so I’ve been told at least, so I am asking for that second chance to make right.”

Malin leaned back again, threading his fingers together. “I was dumped into this world basically without any of my own consent, and my new companion and I have another issue with trying to reach Berk to return home: he has some difficulty in a few cases traveling by most conventional means, like via boat or a caravan. I am trying to get back to where I actually live, and I wanted to take him with me of course, as we’ve gotten close.”

I frowned further. “Malin, you do recall that I have the abilities dragons do, yes?”

“Hard to forget.”

“Okay; some dragons are able to see infrared light. It’s also a known fact that when someone lies, their face heats up around the eyes. So I can tell you’re lying about something, and while I can’t pinpoint what exactly, I would suggest you decide to come clean about whatever it is.”

Malin closed his eyes for a moment, before looking at me, seemingly sincerely. “Very well, so my ending up on this earth was not entirely against my wishes. I wanted answers, like I did when I first took you, and I got them, but just not how I expected. But it is fully the truth that I am seeking your help to return home, urgently. When I was…uh, ‘broken out’ in a manner of speaking, I began working on a project rather personal to me. I was in the middle of it when I was transported here.” He looked between us, genuinely pleading. “I am asking for your help, whether I deserve it or not, because I must get home.”

Hiccup tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to him, the two of us leaning away so words would be private. “Seems like a similar situation as Amethyst was just in, hmm?” he whispered pointedly.

He was very right about that. I closed my eyes, trying to calm and re-center myself, before nodding in understanding. Then, I turned back to Malin and clasped my hands together on the table.

“I’ll tell you what,” I began, “how about you introduce us to this companion of yours, and explain how you intend to repay Rome for the destruction you caused and the following threats you gave, and we can discuss my helping you further from there.”

Malin tipped his head in agreement and stood up. “I guess I have little choice in saying yes or no, so if you will follow me, I can take you to him,” he explained, heading for the door of the building, tossing a couple of coins onto the counter of the bar.

I looked at the others, before we all left our seats together and exited the tavern behind the mysterious man. As we exited the door, Hiccup gave a sharp whistle, and the dragons reappeared and fell in behind us. Almost all of them, that is.

<Orha,> I growled, keeping my tone to a level only the dragon could hear, <stay shrouded, just in case.>

<Got it,> he replied, and I caught sight of the barely traceable shift in the air that told me the Shadowracer was gliding silently above us. <Want to explain who the mystery character is?> he followed up though.

<He’s Jonathan Malin,> I said, just loud enough so all the dragons could hear. <He kidnapped me years ago; don’t trust him in any manner. He’s not that bright, but still plucky enough to put nasty surprises together.>

Malin of course noticed the other three reptiles that showed up, gathering around us, and nodded. “So you all flew here with backup,” he mused. “Smart.”

“More or less,” I returned guardedly, giving away nothing more.

We headed eastward out of the city, entering a region of sparse deciduous forest as we meandered in the direction of a small, rocky hill.

“It’s difficult to find a place for someone like him to stay in the city,” Malin spoke up, obviously speaking of his companion. “So, I had to find a suitable location out here for him while we awaited your arrival. I’m sure a less direct introduction to the city would have made it easier on all of us, but I really did not think a more subtle approach would have brought you as quickly as I had hoped.”

He turned us off the road that cut through the forest, and headed off through the woodland, coming up toward the southern face of the hill.

“So, uh, who exactly is this companion of yours everyone keeps mentioning?” Astrid queried, voicing the question we all had on our minds.

Malin chuckled. “Oh come now, I want at least one nice surprise here; you’ll find out when we reach him.”

“Can you at least provide a name perhaps?” Ember prodded, glancing at Astrid and I and not hiding her suspicion. “Personally, I don’t want to just meet someone going in blind, especially when they happen to be acquainted with someone who wronged Hawken.”

Malin glanced back at her. “Very well,” he conceded. “His name is Jacob.”

It was not much at all to go on, but for some reason the name sent a bad feeling running through me. Perhaps it was paranoia coming off the symbolism I knew from that name; Hebraically, Jacob meant “deceiver” or “heel grabber.” Neither happened to be a very heartwarming definition.

Malin continued leading us around the base of the hill, before finally stepping out into a large clearing surrounding the jagged opening of a cavern that carved its way into the hillside. My senses triggered as I and the dragons tested the air; I smelled the traces of a reptile, which fit what Attonius had first told us of Malin’s companion.

“Jake’s the kind of character who likes solitude to think, so when we found this it seemed perfect, not to mention out of the way,” Malin explained, walking up to the mouth of the cave and rapping against the stone with his fist, the harsh noise echoing into the shadows.

As we waited, Malin turned toward us and smiled, and another chill passed down my spine. “I think that it’s a fitting time to admit that the project I mentioned working on was a bit more than personal,” he said. “Once completed it’ll affect the whole world, hopefully to a benefit…please stop looking at me that way Hawken, it’s not along the same lines as that past event,” he said, noting my hardening glare. “The two of us –Jake and I- just need to return home to set everything in motion.”

“Set what in motion, exactly?”

This time it was Attonius who put forth the query on our minds. “Beating around the bush is not a very trustworthy feature,” he continued, “and you have done a mighty fair amount of that.”

Malin looked over at him with an odd smile, but did not put forth an answer to the question. Something else did, however.

A low, metallic buzzing noise emanated from deep within the cave, drawing nearer to the mouth very rapidly. After going the whole summer helping take care of venomous snakes at my university, it was a sound that at once seemed incredibly and chillingly familiar, but at the same time altogether different. Suddenly, the bad feeling I’d had about who, or perhaps what, Malin’s companion was dropped several levels.

My fears were confirmed moments later when he revealed himself. Slit eyes appeared in the shadows, the irises practically glowing with fiery hues of red, orange, and yellow, and his wide head was shaded by the brim of a pitch black cowboy hat. Coils upon coils of ammunition belts wrapped their way around his upper body, hundreds of bullets for the multi-segmented Gatling gun that buzzed away in place of a proper rattle on the tip of his tail. As he slid out into the sun, he locked eyes with me and grinned, displaying the needle teeth I was far more used to seeing at a thousandth of the size.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you Rattlesnake Jake,” Malin announced, spreading his hands in a flourishing gesture toward the reptile before looking up at Jake. “I needed someone that people around here would not be able to immediately classify so things wouldn’t be given away, and someone who could wield weapons no one would recognize. And of course, I needed something that would undoubtedly make them fear; after all, can’t start a chain reaction without a catalyst.”

“What are you going on about Malin?” Astrid growled, hands reaching for her axe as she kept her eyes firmly locked on the hundred foot Western Diamondback, who chuckled as he turned his gaze toward the warrioress.

“If I were you, I’d leave that weapon right where it is,” he warned, words flowing in a smooth-yet-gravelly voice that befit his character as he brought his tail forward, dangerously calm but holding every threat in the world. “After all, there is very little that is faster than a rattlesnake’s strike, or a bullet.” Jake chuckled again and, in a flash, had moved behind us and was towering over the dragons.

“Jake and I have a simple goal in mind at the moment,” Malin spoke up, dividing our attention between the almost smug smirk on his face and the gaze of the snake. “Like I said, I really don’t want to threaten here, but you will take us to Berk, and thereby to the path home.”

“Or what?” Camicazi snapped.

“Or you and all of Rome will die,” Malin replied far too calmly. “I have very little issue with carrying that out if need be; after all, how do you think Jake even came to be?” He sauntered over to us, just beyond arm’s length, and looked at me. “This world is full of power; you have it, many others do. This is only the surface that’s been tapped.”

“Hard for you to get to Berk if we’re dead,” I muttered. “Or if you are for that matter.” My tail snaked out, a barbed tip lancing outward and aiming for Malin’s neck, intent on holding him hostage against his own threat. The man clearly hadn’t changed a bit since I last saw him, just attempted changing tactics; now the lie I had sensed was made clear. He didn’t have the intent to just return home and live quietly, he had something in mind for everyone and it wasn’t a positive save for in his eyes.

A sudden yelp of shock and fear from Stormfly stalled my attack, however, and I turned my head to see what had happened.

Jake had wrapped around the Mood Dragon, the gun to her chest and his fangs bared above her head. “Finish that move and this one dies,” he hissed, “followed by the other two.” He squeezed tighter, Stormfly flushing white with fear as she locked a panicked gaze on me.

Camicazi and Ember immediately drew their weapons, but Jake only opened his mouth wider, a slick of yellow venom forming on the tip of one fang; it would be more than enough to do the job.

A stream of bluish white fire raked out of the trees behind the rattlesnake and seared across his neck, causing Jake to jerk with surprise and loosen his grip, just enough for the sinuous dragon in his grip to worm her way out and dive out of the way of danger. Jake snarled and aimed upward with his tail, trying to find this new assailant but seeing nothing; Shadowracers bend light, and that includes infrared. The gang, meanwhile, ran to their dragons and mounted up, Attonius climbing on behind Hiccup and Ember staying near me for the moment, until Orha could safely land.

As Jake turned, still trying to find the attacker, I caught sight of where the fire had hit: blackened soot lay across the rattler’s smoking scales, but there was no damage; the snake himself was fireproof. Malin, however was not, and he dove out of the way as another stream of flame exploded from the rocks above us, drawing Jake’s attention once more.

“What the hell is this thing?!” he snapped, gun waving around wildly.

“It’s a Changewing!” Malin yelled, getting to his feet and pulling out a sword I didn’t even know he’d had on him. “Use your heat sensors already!”

“That won’t help,” Ember laughed, drawing her bow as we backed toward the rest of the group again. “Don’t you know Changewings spit acid, not fire? And Shadowracers cloak themselves from all wavelengths of lights, including infrared.”

“And that means that the two of you are sitting ducks, unable to really do anything while we leave this foolish trap of yours, Malin,” I added, signaling the others to gather close together. We definitely were not sticking around any longer.

Malin snarled in frustration, before whipping out a signal transponder, punching in a code. “You’re not going anywhere, or else Rome will be leveled to the ground!” he yelled, his finger hovering over a small green button on the device.

Ember whistled, drawing Orha down from his attack, and the Shadowracer finally showed himself behind me as Ember climbed on and linked hands with Hiccup nearby. Jake leveled his gun at us, only to find me spreading out my arms as they morphed to blue and white wings.

“It won’t work, Malin,” I said. “A lot has happened since you last saw me; press that button and it will only be your own loss.” I continued to back toward my friends as Jake finally lost his patience and fired, unloading several rounds only to be frustrated further as the bullets impacted a barrier field midair and dropped uselessly to the ground.

Seeing this, Malin lost his own patience. “It won’t be my mistake when the lives of millions fall on your head,” he snapped, and pressed the button.

It was the same scene as nearly two years before, a bright light emanating from somewhere near the city as a beam of energy lanced through the forest, hitting me full on. This time though it wasn’t dozens of explosives, so after a few seconds the beam died off, leaving me brimming with energy and primed to take off.

“Like I said Malin, your mistake,” I drawled, before whipping my head around and yelling, “Cami, now!”

The warrioress nodded, having already been planning her move, and threw the capsule in her hand to the ground, the first she had used from Loki’s vial.

It hit and exploded, a thick cloud of greenish smoke erupting out of it and blocking Malin’s view of us as we left the ground, the bomb’s energy giving me the needed boost to take everyone home.

“You know he’s going to make it to Berk eventually!” Hiccup called over the buzz of electricity. “We should have dealt with him while we were still here!”

“Better to just get back home now!” I replied firmly. “More time to prepare, no matter how incompetent he’s remained!”

* * *

As soon as the smoke bomb went off Jake opened fire again, only to recoil as a sonic shockwave ripped outward, followed by the dying echoes of thunder moving further and further away. As the smoke cleared, both he and Malin were met with an empty clearing, no trace of the dragon riders left save for the slightly blackened area left behind by the lightning.

“Augh!!” Jake yelled, whirling and taking out his frustration by firing at a nearby tree, the poor thing ripped to shreds by the huge bullets. Then, he whipped back around to glare down at Malin, sides heaving as he breathed heavily in his rage.

“Any other great plans, genius?” he exclaimed, tail rattling furiously. “Let’s lead them to the cave, surround them and threaten them with death and destruction of the city, a sure way to gain cooperation by any standard, and completely miss the fact that they have an invisible dragon”-

“Jake…”

“-the boy can absorb nuclear energy somehow”-

“Jake…”

“-oh, and let’s not forget we have no real means of reaching Berk now with everyone aware of our intentions and”-

“JAKE!!”

The diamondback shut up and glared at Malin, who had a disappointed scowl of his own on, but this one was directed at the snake. “The plan is working almost perfectly actually,” the man said condescendingly. “I didn’t tell you everything.”

Now the expression on Jake’s face morphed to confusion with a tinge of betrayal. “What? Why wouldn’t you?”

“Just to make sure nothing was accidentally spilled by you. We have our own way to Berk, and this was mostly to give me time to plan and then make Hawken and the others think I’m still as incompetent and one-track-minded as I was the last time he encountered me. They think I’m still working to put the preliminary pieces together.”

Jake’s mouth pursed in thought, before he huffed. “I still believe I can be entrusted with details; I ain’t a squealer,” he muttered. “I’m not stupid enough to accidentally let loose our whole plan. But, if that’s the case then what the hell was the point of the bomb if you knew Hawken was just going to use it all for his own gain?”

Malin chuckled. “Very well, so that part was a surprise to me. I had been hoping to simply take Rome out as a side prize to everything else, but now it’s pointless. The boy won’t come back here, not now, so we move on and let these pitiful simpletons fall back to their pointless lives. All goes well and this earth will take care of itself while we take care of the other one.” He turned, and pulled a radio out of his pocket, opening it up and extending the antenna before switching it on.

“This is Malin coming in, what’s the situation on your end?” he said. A moment’s silence passed before the other end went live, a cool, calculating voice replying, “The Berserker is willing to help, in return for the favor you’ll be doing him. The other one is also willing if simply to leave where he is now. Looks like we’ll have a jailbreak to attend to followed by probably two days’ worth of travel by ship to lead the army to the island.”

Malin nodded, though the other party couldn’t see this, and a smile returned to his face. “How soon can you be here?”

“Give me four hours, and then we can leave. Be ready when I arrive of course. Oh, and tell Jake to load up the nets in advance.”

Malin nodded again and closed the radio, turning back to the snake. “I need to gather a couple things from the city’s edge,” he said. “Stay here and wait for Pitch, and he says load the net rounds now. We’ll have to move quickly.” Then he turned and headed back down the trail toward Rome, pulling his blade back out as he disappeared from sight.

Jake mumbled something unintelligible, along the lines of knowing what to prepare for already and how he was worth keeping updated about the actual details in play, before bringing up his gun and opening it up. The bullets inside were removed carefully, placed in holders and exchanged for a specially designed set on his belt. The next phase was meant to be non-lethal, he knew, but that was mostly for the people. The dragons were a different story, and the rattlesnake’s fangs flexed at the thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rattlesnake Jake ranks quite high on the list of characters I'm fond of. As this is a tale that will do quite a bit of dabbling in different fictional realms, I loved having a way to incorporate him. He'll be fairly important from here on out too.


	19. Open Doors

_Once cracked, the case will fail_

_Once pierced, the armor breaks_

_Once open, doors hide no secrets_

_Once released, all is what the flood takes_

“You’re the one who always fixes it on the spot! Since when do you run?!”

“Since I know how he works! He’s a fool!”

“I’m worried that you’re the one who’s being foolish now, Hawken.”

“Oh, so you had some sort of a plan for what to do then and there to take care of whatever he has set up back in my world?”

“If I could just”-

“SHUT UP CAMI!!”

It took barely more than an hour for the group to return to Berk thanks to the bomb’s energy, and tension levels were off the charts as they landed. Hiccup and Hawken had gotten into a strenuous argument over the incident in Rome and had driven each other to the limit, and so as the electric bolt faded and everyone was left standing in the plaza, Hawken didn’t waste time trying to cool things off. Instead, he immediately morphed to a Skrill and took off for a storm brewing to the southwest.

Hiccup, meanwhile, turned and stomped off toward the forge, leaving Ember and Cami and their dragons standing with Attonius and looking thrown for a loop while Toothless, Astrid, and Thorn trailed after the young Viking. Astrid speed-walked as she tried to catch up with Hiccup and took hold of his left elbow, trying to get him to slow down.

“Hiccup, would you wait up for one second?”

“Let go of me Astrid, I’m not in the mood!” Hiccup snapped back, managing to wrench his arm out of her grip as he sped up again. “We left without actually taking care of anything! How could he be that bullheaded about this?!”

Astrid stared after him, open-mouthed, before scowling and looking to Toothless, gesturing to his rider. Toothless nodded and bounded forward, halting in front of Hiccup and planting himself firmly.

“Get out of the way, Toothless,” Hiccup growled, trying to step around the dragon and getting only a snort in reply. “I mean it, move!”

“Not until you get your head back on straight,” Toothless countered, moving to block Hiccup’s way again as the young man side-stepped again. “You and Hawken are _both_ getting out of line, and I don’t know what it is, but something is getting into everyone’s head around here at the moment and it needs to stop.”

“Toothless is right,” Astrid continued, walking up to Hiccup with a stern look on her face. “Look, I also agree that we did leave a few loose ends untied with how we left Rome, but it’s not like there was a lot that we could have done further either. You were both right, and both wrong, but neither of you would shut up for long enough for the rest of us to get one word in edgewise.”

She caught out of the corner of her eye the sight of Stoick walking up toward them with Eret in tow, but shook her head warningly. The chief stopped, eyes widening, before he nodded and ushered the Sami elsewhere. Then, Astrid sighed and turned back to Hiccup.

“Look, Toothless is also right about this temper thing going around. First it was Amethyst, then Hawken, and now it’s you. We need to keep our heads level right now, especially since Malin will eventually make his way up here one way or another, and this season is already wearing on all of us. We don’t need to be wearing out each other as well, especially over something that’s already been done and can’t be taken back, for better or worse.” She stepped forward and grabbed Hiccup’s shoulder, firmly but reassuringly at the same time, forcing him to look at her.

“Hiccup, whether you like it or not you and Hawken are more or less the leaders here; we can’t afford to have you two out of order with each other. I know I am not capable of leading everyone like you guys do if things go wrong.”

Hiccup sighed and looked away for a moment, thoughts flooding through his head faster than he could process them. A tense moment passed, before he let out a breath and reached up to rest his hand on Toothless’ snout, the dragon moving forward in response and rubbing his head against his brother.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Hiccup admitted, “but after all this time you have to admit it’s amazing this is the only major argument we’ve managed to have.”

“Other than your debates over various movies that you guys go and see all the time now?” Astrid asked with a faint smile.

Hiccup couldn’t help it, and started chuckling despite himself. “Okay, yeah, but that doesn’t count,” he defended, before looking around and then giving her a somber expression. “We need to focus forward, and first things first, there’re a couple of tweaks I need to make to the wings.” He turned to go again, before Astrid grabbed his shoulder.

“Hold on, a couple more things,” she said, grinning. Hiccup turned, eyebrow raised, only to find Astrid’s fist connecting with his upper arm.

“Ow! What was that for?!”

“That was for being the huge pain in the rear you are, and for yelling at Cami a couple of minutes ago. You’d better apologize for that, by the way. And this,” she continued, pulling Hiccup forward and planting a kiss on his lips, “is for admitting you were going overboard.”

As Hiccup went slack over the smooch, Astrid’s smile widened and she pushed him in the direction of the forge. “And don’t worry, Hawken will be getting slugged just as hard when he gets back as well. Wanna help, Toothless?”

“Of course! He nearly burst my eardrums with his yelling!”

* * *

When I returned to the village, Astrid followed through in her promise to Hiccup, slugging me as hard as she could as I came into the forge. She was right, though; I deserved it through and through. Hiccup and I made our peace, me agreeing that there were things we should have wrapped up and him acknowledging there was little else we could have done with Malin (other than killed him, which was not to either of our styles). Then, we focused on tightening up a few of the loose ends in the village. Attonius and his friends could not return to Rome, not safely at least (and I was beginning to get the feeling that at least Attonius himself had no intention of returning at all), so they were soon set up within a guest house until something perhaps a little more permanent could be arranged.

Eret and his crew were a different situation, perfectly able to leave on their own now and without the need to return with extra passengers. But, as I discovered when the Sami approached me on my way up to the Great Hall, at least one of them was also somewhat reluctant to simply check out and go.

“I, uh, was talking a rather great deal with Amethyst and Valka while you all were gone,” Eret began, causing me to slow in my steps. “Hiccup’s mother is an odd one, but uh, she holds a lot of knowledge about dragons, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, that she does,” I agreed. “You and the Night Fury figure things out then?”

“Almost right after you left, actually,” he explained. “She’s been somewhere up in the mountains all day today, but that was not really what I wanted to talk to you about.” He clasped his hands together and looked around at the village. “This place is rather…rather unique, and today I had the time to actually speak with the villagers here in more proper detail than my last ‘visit.’ Berk kind of…grows on you, and, uh…” he trailed off and spread his hands in an open-ended question.

I nodded, beginning to understand where he was going from here. “Okay, two questions first: did you talk to Hiccup and Stoick about this at all?”

Eret smirked. “Well, we were going to talk to Hiccup earlier, but there was some sort of complication going on with him.”

“Yeah, that was probably partly my fault. You said we, so I assume that means you did talk to Stoick. In that case, question two: are you willing to help fight? Because the guy we went to meet in Rome is probably going to end up here in the next couple of months, and he will almost certainly not be on friendly terms.”

Eret took a moment to respond to that, before a determined look entered his eyes and he nodded. “Took me long enough to come to terms with what you smacked me with those months ago, and I don’t see a way I can turn back on that now,” he explained. “Doesn’t sit well with me to let anyone else go against it anymore either.”

I grinned. “Good. In that case, there’s someone who I think you ought to meet. You could use a companion around here.” Turning, I roared out, <Spitfire!!>

An echoing roar answered back, and shortly thereafter the Changewing popped into view nearby. <You called? Something you need help with?>

“Actually, Spitfire, I wanted to introduce you to a potential new companion. Spitfire, meet Eret. Eret, meet Spitfire.”

They both just looked at me for a moment with dumbfounded expressions. “A-are you serious?” Eret blurted. “I used to trap them! I know nothing about riding on or caring for one!”

“Which is why I’m pairing you two here with this assignment,” I said, pulling out a notepad from my pocket and scribbling something down, before pulling the sheet off and handing it to Eret. “Take this to Hiccup; I know you probably can’t read it, but he’ll understand. And then, since he’ll probably be busy, you can ask Valka about teaching you to ride.”

I looked down at the Changewing. <You know I wouldn’t suggest someone to you that I didn’t think was a fit, right?> I asked gently. <Help him out, okay? He’s on the right path now, just needs some encouragement.>

Spitfire nodded, and I tipped my head in farewell to both of them before turning back to the Great Hall, seeking Stoick out and leaving Eret with an expectant looking Changewing at his side.

* * *

“Alvin’s gone!”

“What?! I though you guys had the best prison guards in the archipelago!”

“We do, but between shifts there is like a two minute open period!”

Hiccup sighed and rubbed his forehead, before glancing at me. I shrugged, not having an explanation or excuse to bail Thuggory out on this one, and we both turned to the Meathead heir.

“Don’t you have like overlapping shifts on the different levels at any one time though?” I asked.

Thuggory nodded. “Yeah, one for each layer of security. We thought that would be enough to cover the time gaps necessary for the change-outs, but that’s literally the only explanation I have, unless Treacherous and about a half dozen men we took in with him just vanished into thin air. My father sent me to let you guys know just in case though, because we both think somehow they slipped between the security layers and got out. And, if Alvin’s going to make a move, we know it will be against Berk; he doesn’t really have grudges against anyone else.”

“I doubt Alvin would be stupid enough to simply launch an attack without some sort of serious hidden advantage,” I muttered, gesturing around the hall toward the other villagers nearby. “After all, we have the advantage of numbers, dragons, the Mysteel, Aurianna’s devices, and our respective gifts. It would take a _lot_ to bring Berk down, especially with backup from the Bogs and Meatheads if need be.”

Hiccup nodded in agreement. “Yeah. We appreciate your coming to alert us however, Thuggory, but I’d bet we’ll have it under control. Though, you since you’re here, you can take a message back to Mogadon.”

Thuggory’s brows arched. “Oh? What kind of message?”

“We may need your assistance in a month or two. Some of the rest of the team just returned from a very stressful visit to Rome, and we met with a guy who might either have ended up with some sort of gift, or he’s got some major allies, and he’s got a bone to pick with Hawken and company apparently.”

Thuggory glanced at me. “What kind of allies?”

“He’s got a hundred foot rattlesnake working for him, if that’s any clue,” I explained. “Or, they’re both working for someone else we don’t know, but that’s not Malin’s style if I can take anything from our past encounter. Anyway, I need to get going; got lots of chores that I have to catch up on at home, unfortunately, but we’ll keep you posted too. Oh, and something that I’ve been meaning to give you….”

I reached into a pocket and pulled out a headset, handing it to the Meathead. “Might come in handy for longer-distance communication. You put it on and turn the switch, and we should be able to contact you as far away as your island, though we haven’t been able to really test the range.”

Thuggory looked the device over, before nodding in understanding. “Where’d you get it?”

“Zipeau builds them actually; you remember him from the twins’ weddings, right?”

“Oh yeah. Wow. Anyway, I probably need to head back out as well; I was supposed to contact Cami about something while Silverwings and I are out and about, and since she’s apparently back on Bog at the moment we’ve got another leg of flying to cover. See you soon, I’ll bet.”

The heir waved and slipped out the door, mounting his Nightmare and taking off to the southwest, toward Bog Island. I glanced at Hiccup, who had the same odd expression that I wore. “I’m not the only one who’s suddenly getting a really bad feeling here, right?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, no, I noticed it too. Could be coincidence, but it might be wise that we speed up preparations. Somehow I really don’t think Malin’s working alone anymore.”

* * *

Malin stood looking out over the railing of the ship, watching as tendrils of fog wafted over the ocean. A few miles ahead, an island was almost completely shrouded from view, but then that also meant that they were invisible to the eyes on the island. Very good in his mind, as he did not want their presence known just yet.

He glanced to the side, where Jake was dozing on the deck and trying to reconcile the cooler air here with his exothermic tendencies (though his size was negating most of the issue), and smirked. Two days ago they were in Rome, and now they stood on the deck of the lead ship of an armada, barely a stone’s throw from Hiccup’s home. The village would never expect to be hit this quickly.

“Ye’ve been rather tight-lipped about the details here, Malin,” a gravelly voice suddenly spoke up from behind him. “How exactly do ye intend te uphold yer promise?”

Malin turned to view a man that stood far taller than he did, with a rough visage to match the voice. “Ye got me out of prison,” the man continued, “and ye paired my men with the nutcase of a Berserker that tribe made chief, just te gain a distraction. Ye know they’ll guard Hiccup and his dragon with everything they have if they catch even the slightest hint of what yer plannin’.”

“They don’t even think I’ll be here for another month or two,” Malin returned, “and they think that I’m an incompetent, unplanned oaf. If you and Dagur break out a battle chaotically enough, the thought won’t even cross their minds to look for a man and a snake hiding out in the woods. One shot is all that Jake needs, two if we get a chance at the girl as well. Then, you can have the satisfaction of knowing your mutual pain in the rear will be on a different planet, stuck without any decent defense or his dragon and surrounded by a very hostile environment. That’s how I’ll uphold my bargain.”

“Good, because Hiccup’s been in my way for too long, and his friend is just as infuriating as the first twig,” Dagur cut in, appearing from below deck and sauntering over with a grin. “But I have to know: how do you plan on keeping the dragons from attacking you as you steal their riders? I may be deranged, but I’m not stupid; they won’t just sit back idly as you walk off with Hiccup and his girlfriend.”

Malin nodded, and pulled out a vial of dark red liquid from his coat pocket, holding it up for all of them to see.

“Last time I checked, eels are poisonous to dragons in all forms,” he explained. “In this case, concentrated extract from their blood, which holds an extremely high level of the toxin. Dip an arrow, or in Jake’s case a bullet or two, into this, and even a scratch will bring them down. I tried it on a Timberjack we came across near Rome; the results are pleasantly painful, and extremely effective in short order.” He handed the vial to Dagur, and then pulled out a second for Alvin. “Spread this amongst your men, and none of the dragons will stand a chance against you.”

The Berserker and the Outcast both looked at the vials in their hands, and then at each other, before equal grins of sadistic satisfaction spread across their faces. Come morning, Berk would find itself the target of great peril.

* * *

Hiccup jolted awake at the sound of the watchtower horn being blown and the alarm bells ringing out over the village, and he immediately scrambled out of bed, shaking the morning grogginess out of his head as he hurried to put on his outfit and tack up his weapons.

“Toothless, get your armor, we need to move!” he ordered, running over and picking up Framherja off her spot on the wall. Toothless moved in tandem, grabbing the armor plates fitted for him and slipping him on as best he could himself before Hiccup scrambled over and helped to get them clipped on securely. Then, they darted out of the skylight above to take in the shocking scene before them.

From the rapidly clearing early morning ocean fog, dozens of ships approached at an astonishing pace, bearing weapons toward the village. The most startling detail however came in the form of the insignia emblazoned on every sail: an angered Skrill. This was Dagur’s armada, and they had not been expecting him for any treaty signings or any other formal meeting; he was here for war.

<I’m honestly not surprised,> Toothless growled. <He’s not exactly the type to let go of grudges.>

Hiccup nodded in agreement, scowling. “Head to Fishlegs’ house; we need to get Zipeau to relay this to Hawken.” The Night Fury barked in affirmation and dove toward the double house, Hiccup leaping off and running inside. As he did so, he practically ran headfirst into Tuffnut, who glanced at him confusedly.

“Uh, Hiccup, why are you in our house at this time of morning?” the twin asked, almost painfully bluntly.

“Did you not hear the bells and horns?” Hiccup snapped back. “Dagur is apparently declaring war on the island, and I need to get ahold of Hawken.”

“Oh cool, we get to go into battle again!” Tuff blurted, grinning widely, before rushing to his room to awaken his wife, who had returned to the island late the night before. “Cami, get up! Time to give Dagur that butt-whipping you’ve been wanting to deliver!”

Hiccup barely gave a moment to shake his head in disbelief before running to Fishlegs’ work room. The transponder relay sat on the edge of the table as always, and Hiccup immediately put on the earpiece and flipped the switch. “Anyone there? Please pick up!” he urged.

A moment passed, before Zipeau’s voice came in over the speaker. “Hiccup? What are you calling this early for?”

“You need to tell Hawken that Dagur is attacking Berk, in full force,” Hiccup explained. “I know he just started class this morning, but this is war.”

“Understood. I’ll get the others geared up and sent over as well, pronto.”

“Great.”

Hiccup put down the earpiece and dashed back out of the house again, just as the first of the ships made landfall. Warriors poured out onto the docks, bearing crossbows and longswords, and immediately they clashed with the first wave of defenders from the village. Having been equipped with Mysteel and Myscale armor and weapons, the Hooligans were able to more than easily hold their ground, but the ships kept coming, and the Berserkers began swarming up the walkways toward the village proper.

“Alright, who should be the first target?” Hiccup mused as he and Toothless returned to the air, the rider drawing Framherja into his hand and sweeping the scene. Before he could take a shot or Toothless could reply, a call from Thorn drew their attention. Hiccup looked up to see the Nadder and her rider approaching fast.

“Bigger problem Hiccup,” Astrid announced. “Valka spotted men coming down from the mountains as well; this is a double-sided attack, and they’ve apparently been here all night preparing for this!”

Hiccup let out a not-quite-silent curse, before Astrid continued. “We’re being hemmed in from both sides pretty rapidly; Stoick and Valka are heading out to the ships, and they want you and me leading the team against the rear attack.” She turned, Thorn following her lead, and they flipped around to soar toward the mountain peaks. “Come on!”

Hiccup nodded and spurred Toothless on, the two of them quickly catching up to the Nadder and skimming over the trees. It didn’t take long to spot the men, and Hiccup drew back on Framherja’s string before letting loose, a bolt screaming through the air and driving into the ground next to one column.

The explosion knocked several of the attacking warriors off their feet, and all the rest in the area went racing behind the trees for cover as Toothless let out a warning shriek.

“You picked the wrong island to invade, boys,” Hiccup called out. “Drop your weapons and surrender or –whoa!”

He yelped as Toothless swerved, dodging arrows aimed for his wings. Nearby, Astrid and Thorn did the same, but as one arrow whizzed by the girl’s head, she reached up and caught it by the shaft, looking carefully at the razor tip. Immediately, she knew what the dried substance on the head was.

“Hiccup! The arrows are poisoned!” she yelled. “Don’t let it hit the dragons, it’s eel blood!”

Hiccup’s eyes widened and he signaled Toothless upward, drawing him back from the warriors below. If even a single arrow hit the dragon’s more exposed wings or tailfins, it would be over.

As they ascended Hiccup spotted Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the other post-teens heading their way, and signaled for them to stay high. “Regroup, they have eel arrows!” he called, sending another bolt from Framherja down through the trees. “We need to come in with cover, use fire or bows to attack from a distance until Hawken gets”-

Hiccup didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence when the sound of a gunshot cracked over the trees, and the whizzing of a net drew near at an impossible speed. He and Toothless turned only in time to see the ropes fly open in front of them, slamming into the pair and dragging them roughly to the earth. Shortly after they hit the ground, hard, both heard a second shot ring out, followed by Astrid’s cry of shock as they were taken down as well.

Ignoring the pain searing through his shoulder from the hard landing, Hiccup dropped Framherja and pulled out his knife, slicing away at the ropes. As soon as he was freed, the loosened ropes gave enough room for Toothless to begin extricating himself, but he had barely begun throwing the ruined net off when a metallic rattling noise made them both freeze.

“Make another move and yer girlfriend gets a free one-way trip to hell,” Jake hissed, slithering up and dragging an unconscious Astrid and her incapacitated dragon in the net behind him. Next to the snake was Malin, sauntering along in a flawless suit not much different from the one he’d worn in Rome and holding Astrid’s axe in his hands. They both stopped a short ways away, and Malin threw the axe to the side, drawing a pistol in its place.

“Funny, how you somehow managed to stay awake through the landing but Astrid didn’t,” he mused. “Makes my job easier though.” Cocking the pistol, he turned and fired point-blank at Thorn.

“No!” Hiccup yelled as the bullet hit, the pain throwing the Nadder back into a fully conscious state as she thrashed from the wound. That’s when Hiccup noticed: Malin had shot Thorn in the leg, not an immediately mortal wound but instead with the intent to produce a longer, far more painful death. Seconds later Thorn’s thrashing began to die back to little more than feeble fidgets, the poison coursing through her bloodstream and weakening her.

Then, Malin turned his gun toward Toothless, who’d taken advantage of the momentary change in focus to remove himself from the net. Another gunshot crack, and Toothless screamed in pain as the bullet ripped into his leg.

“Any other dragons come near and they’ll get the same treatment,” Malin warned. “You, Hiccup, and your girlfriend are coming with me.”

Jake chuckled as he moved forward, whipping around Hiccup and trapping the young man in his coils, doing the same with Astrid and dragging them both away from their dragons, deeper into the forest.

* * *

“Keep your eyes peeled for the Night Fury!” Dagur yelled as the he marched up the village paths, crossbow loaded and at the ready.

“Ye know that one’s off limits!” Alvin yelled back, the burly man turning and locking swords with Gunnar. When the Hooligan’s blade turned and shortened the Outcast’s by a foot, Alvin’s smirk began to turn upside down.

“Defenses have significantly improved since you were last here,” Gunnar toned, sweeping his sword in toward Alvin’s head. Alvin ducked to the side and threw a punch instead, knocking out Gunnar and giving the Outcast a chance to pick up the shiny weapon in his hands. It was a metal like he’d never seen before, light but powerful, and razor sharp.

He didn’t get a chance to use it. The roar of a Thunderdrum slammed into him, Dagur, and the men around them, the powerful sound forcing all to cover their ears to avoid going deaf. Moments later, Thornado soared by, and the intimidating figure of Stoick the Vast dropped down, landing a blow that removed Gunnar’s sword from Alvin’s hand, and simultaneously swinging his hammer into Dagur’s crossbow.

“That doesn’t belong to you! I am appalled by the stupidity you two are displaying, trying te take us on without any special preparations in order,” Stoick growled, his point emphasized as Cloudjumper swept by, a vortex of flame cutting off the three chiefs from Dagur’s backup. Then, the Stormcutter landed and Valka dismounted, swinging her staff menacingly.

Alvin snorted. “Oh, we have special preparations plenty,” he returned, drawing his own modified crossbow and firing a dart at Cloudjumper. The Stormcutter dodged, but not fast enough to avoid a scratch across his shoulder, sending the dragon into searing pain. “Ye see, we found an ally who gladly enlightened us on the wonderful properties of eel’s blood; yer dragons will be useless very shortly.”

Stoick yelled and swung his hammer again, spinning it up into the dart launching bow and shattering it while Valka slammed her staff into Dagur’s gut, before she ran over to Cloudjumper and began examining the wound.

“We need Hawken!” she yelled. “He’s the only one who might have an antidote to this!” She turned, standing at the ready before her dragon, while Stoick signaled Thornado to keep back as the fire began to die down and more men surrounded them.

The scream of a Night Fury echoed nearby, followed by an electrically charged fireball slamming into the Berserkers, sending them flying, and Dagur’s attention turned from the bruise in his stomach toward the sky. A Night Fury, glowing violet down its spine, swept down the street, sparks of electricity jumping off its scales. As it turned, Dagur grinned.

“Well, looks like Hawken finally arrived,” he drawled, a manic gleam in his eye. “Though, not like it matters since”-

“I am _not_ Hawken,” the Night Fury growled out, flaring her wings and landing in front of the Berserker. “Toothless isn’t the only Night Fury around anymore. But you are right: my brother _is_ here.”

She looked up, and Dagur’s boiling veins froze at the sound of the hiss that emanated from behind him.

* * *

I’d just started in on a test when my com headset went off in my pocket. “Hawken, pick up!” Zipeau’s voice came in loud and clear, breaking the dead silence in the room. “This is urgent!”

I sighed painfully and sent an apologetic look to the teacher, before bolting out the door and putting on the com. “Zipeau, I just started a test. This had better be _really_ important.”

“I received a call from Hiccup,” he replied hurriedly. “Dagur is attacking the village, and they seem pretty confident for having no special weapons on their side. I got the feeling something else is at play here too.”

I fell silent. Things were not lining up well, and Zipeau was right: there was no way I could ignore this. “I’ll be right there,” I said, before taking the com back off and pocketing it. Then, walking back into the classroom, I immediately began packing up my things.

“And, uh, where are you going?” the teacher asked irritably.

“Matter of extreme urgency,” I replied. “I’ll have to come in and finish the test at a later date.” I gave another apologetic smile and handed him my nearly blank test, before bolting out the door.

Upon arriving at home, I found Zipeau at the door to meet me, with my swords in hand (those I didn’t have automatically stored away). “I sent the others out already,” he said, “and was waiting for you myself.”

I nodded and speed-walked to the back door. “Well, let’s move then. The sooner this is taken care of, the less of a headache it’s going to be.” We both ran out and through the portal, and then I morphed while Zipeau climbed on, before we took off to the village.

I dropped the Stenonychosaurus off near the plaza, and he ran off toward where we saw Sigrid facing off with a couple of invaders, dual axes in her hands (one needn’t wonder where Astrid’s favor for the weapons came from), as I headed off to where I saw Amethyst razing a group of warriors. Knowing her, she would go for the leaders of the attack if she found them, and that’s who I needed to find as well.

Sure enough, Valka and Stoick were there, facing off with Dagur and…Alvin. Now I knew (or thought I knew) how the Outcast had escaped the Meathead prison. Dagur had turned to focus on Amethyst, and I landed behind him and morphed again into an Alagaesian Dragon as I approached, feathered wings flaring and long neck arching over to glare down at the Berserker. I caught Amethyst speaking condescendingly as I neared: “-but you are right, my brother _is_ here.” Dagur paused at the statement, and I loomed over him and gave a guttural warning hiss.

The Berserker chief froze, before slowly turning to face me, having time only to yelp as I swung my tail and slammed both him and Alvin against the wall of the nearest house.

“Just how stupid _are_ you two?!” I screeched, leaning in close as my eyes swirled through several colors. Dagur struggled to escape the pressure that slowly increased as I leaned in, and replied wheezily, “Stupid enough to keep you busy.” Then he grinned, letting out his characteristic maniacal laugh.

I opened my mouth to ask what he meant when Valka caught my attention. “They brought weapons laced with eel blood,” she said quickly. “Several dragons have already been hit, Cloudjumper included.”

“Oh, wonderful,” I growled, my scales flexing and digging into the skin of my two captives. I focused for a moment, head morphing slightly, before reaching up and swiping a claw through my mouth. “It’s rather unsightly I know, but put this on the injury,” I said. “Luckily enough for us that Typhoomerangs secrete the enzyme they use against the eel poison in their saliva.”

Valka, having been long since desensitized to gross dragon things, didn’t pause for a moment as she took the goo on my paw and wiped a portion on Cloudjumper’s shoulder. “I need to find the other dragons who’ve been hit,” she said, immediately heading down the path.

I, meanwhile, turned my attention back to the struggling enemy chiefs, and snarled. “What could you _possibly_ think this would accomplish, other than your own humiliation again?” I snapped. “Sure, it takes a couple of minutes for a dragon to recover once treated, but dragons aren’t the only thing you have to worry about anymore.”

As if to prove my point, Feren ran past not a second later, the bladed plates on his tail whipping around viciously. Dagur’s eyes widened further at seeing this, while Alvin’s stoic expression remained unchanged; I doubt he would have flinched even if he were suddenly thrown into New York’s Times Square.

Alvin looked up at me, and replied very flatly, “Whatever happens to us, our revenge has already been exacted. I notice that the female is the only Night Fury in the skies at the moment.”

My eyes narrowed and I turned my head skyward, ears swiveling upward as far as they could. True to what the Outcast said, the trademark scream of the Night Fury could only be heard where Amethyst had taken off again, toward the docks. Off in the other direction, toward the forest, a different noise could just barely be heard over the chaos: Toothless’ pained yelps, and a weakening roar for Hiccup.

“What did you DO?!” I screamed, tail pressing in harder on Dagur and Alvin’s necks and cutting their air supply slowly off.

“It’s not…what we did,” Dagur wheezed, now fully dropping the bow still clasped in his hands as he scrambled to remove the scaly appendage digging into his throat.

“Hawken!”

I turned my head up to see Ember hovering above me on Orha. “It’s Malin, he’s here,” she said urgently. “And he and the rattlesnake shot down Hiccup and Astrid. They’re headed for the portal!”

Everything made sense in that instant: how Alvin escaped without a trace, why he and Dagur were suddenly bold enough to attack Berk head-on. If Malin had made it here in barely two days, he definitely had the resources to pull a couple Outcasts out of a Viking-guarded prison. I roared in fury and swept my tail to the side, catapulting the two captives straight into the side of another house. “All yours, Stoick!” I said venomously, and took off, racing after Orha.

He and Ember led me first to where Thorn and Toothless lay, both of them spasming as the poison of eels overtook their systems as well as from the pain of what were clearly bullet wounds in their legs. I landed quickly and placed my hand first over Toothless’ wound, then Thorns, drawing out the copper slugs still within, before taking more of the modified saliva and applying it to the wounds.

That was when I noticed the other Outcasts and Berserkers nearby. They’d not attacked yet because they immediately figured out who I was when I landed, so I gave a scowl and took the first shot, firing a lightning bolt off through the trees and subsequently either knocking them out or scattering them into the forest.

<H-Hawken, he took Hiccup,> Toothless gasped, strength slowly returning as he tried to stand. <He took Hiccup and->

“Calm down, I know,” I said, putting a hand on his head. “I’m going after them now; you stay here until the poison abates, and then you can come after.” I glanced up at Ember. “Keep watch over them until they can safely move, then alert the other teens if they don’t know. And get Fishlegs to contact Thuggory, got it?”

I turned, wings opening wide once more. “And send my family as soon as they can break from the fight in the village; this is going to get ugly, fast.” Ember nodded, and I took off.

Malin and Jake were already passing through the portal by the time I reached them, and after healing the wounds on Phil and the other Terrors (true to form, they attacked when Malin had attempted to get through, having sworn to protect the passage for us) I ran through as well. They were only halfway across my yard, and I immediately spotted both Hiccup and Astrid in Jake’s grip.

“Malin!”

They both stopped and turned, Jake raising his gun to the heads of my friends. “Make a move and they’ll both be a head shorter,” he warned, fiery eyes glaring every threat they could.

“Then I would have absolutely no reason left to hold me back from killing you outright,” I growled back.

“You’re right,” Malin agreed, drawing his own pistol, “but there’s nothing to say we can’t hurt them, severely, if you advance any further. But you’ll have your hands too full shortly to try and rescue them, so it would be wisest of you now to back down and tend to far more pressing matters.” He chuckled. “Oh, and don’t bother trying to follow us; don’t worry, I have no intention of killing them myself.”

Malin nodded, and I felt a physical shadow pass through the scene, something unseen heading northward. I materialized a sword, and swung it to point toward Malin.

“What did you just do?”

“Sent someone to keep you busy. I know the layout of you city well now, and passed it on to him. You might want to deal with that before he causes too much trouble.”

Malin walked over to where Jake held Hiccup and took hold of the mechanical wings on the Viking’s back, forcefully detaching them and throwing the device at my feet. “I hear the schools are in full session now,” he toned lightly, grinning. “Be a shame if they were demolished just so that you could save two lowly Vikings instead.”

“Go, Hawken!” Astrid urged, having woken from her unconscious state finally. “We’ll be fine, go!” Hiccup nodded next to her in agreement, even as the sound of some sort of jet began to rise up from the nearby street.

I grimaced, before nodding back to them and dematerializing the sword. Malin chuckled, and gave me a false mocking salute before he and Jake sauntered through the gate in the fence and out onto the street. A second later a great wind rose up as a large, streamlined jet rose off the road and turned southward.

It didn’t get far before I sent one last gift however; a small, magnetized circular contraption that stuck fast to the exterior as the jet sped off. It was only a prototype, but hopefully it would be enough. Then, I turned on my com device.

“Zipeau, if you’re there, pick up!”

Yes, Hawken?”

“Tell Toothless once he’s well enough to grab Astrid’s axe and bring it with him,” I ordered, bending down and storing away Hiccup’s wings. “Then, send everyone to the middle school as soon as the fight is over.”

“Really? But”-

“Zipeau, we are now at war as we speak; the secret is going to be over and done with very shortly anyway. Send Ember, Fishlegs, Amethyst, Twintail, Sasha, everyone. I need to contact Holly.”

There was a short pause, along with the sound of some poor Berserker yelling in pain, before Zipeau replied. “Got it. We’ll see you shortly then.”

I switched channels immediately and remotely dialed my phone as well, contacting my mother first. Three rings, and then she picked up.

“Sergeant Carlton.”

“Mom, call your superiors and put in a state of national emergency.”

“Why, what happened?”

“John Malin is back, with what appears to be a whole host of new resources. The US will shortly be at war, our town already is.”

“Is Holly safe?”

“I’m headed there now,” I reassured. “Malin has some sort of weapon or ally deployed out to the city, so I’m going to have her either brought to Berk or kept somewhere away. I need to go, stay safe.”

“You too. I love you, and have Holly call me as soon as she can, got it?”

“Absolutely.”

Wings spread, I took to the sky as I turned my phone off, rocketing toward the middle school. I had given Holly a com device as well for emergencies, and told her to keep it on no matter what. As I focused back on my com, I prayed she had listened as I turned on the channel, pulling up her device’s frequency as I also prayed that whatever was on the way would take at least another minute to get there.

“Holly? Holly, if you’re there, pick up now! This is an emergency!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's about time we got the real fun going...


	20. Black as Pitch

_Fears revealed_

_Terrors awake_

_Death will court you_

_Evil awaits_

_Your nightmares are known_

_You targeted soul_

_The curses will chase_

_All that you know_

The classroom was deathly silent save for the droning of the teacher’s voice; not much of a surprise though, as half the kids in the class were still mostly asleep, and the other half mostly couldn’t be bothered to care about the subject.

That was why Holly jerked upright in surprise, and then winced, when the com went off in her pocket.

“Holly?” her brother’s voice projected loudly into the room. “Holly, if you’re there, pick up now! This is an emergency!”

Immediately Holly scrambled to pull out the device, looking apologetically at the teacher. “He required me to have this on, no exceptions,” she excused. “I need to take this.” Slipping out the door of the room, she put the com on and turned on the two-way speaker.

“Hawken, I’m in the middle of class and”-

“Call Nara to you and stay with her,” Hawken interrupted, the tone of his voice clearly no-nonsense. “And get everyone out of the building, now. Something’s coming; I’ll be there as soon as I can.” The other end clicked off, and Holly’s eyes widened as she processed what Hawken had just said, before she raced back into the room.

“Everyone out!” she shouted, before running over to a window and opening it, calling out “Nara!” as loudly as she could.

“Holly, what is going on?” her teacher asked, clearly quite irritated at how rudely her lesson had been interrupted.

“We got a warning from my brother,” Holly returned pointedly. “We’re in danger, and need to get out of the building. Call the office and tell them to sound the alarm. Move!”

The teacher moved to reply again, but Holly had already left the room. Moments later a squawk drew her attention to the window, where a Nadder flew by the classroom. This finally prompted the teacher to nod to the other students and point them to the door, before pressing the intercom button and relaying the message Holly had given as best as she could.

Holly, meanwhile, sprinted down the stairs and through the halls, sticking her head just long enough through the doors she passed to yell, “Everyone get out, quickly!” before moving on. In the cafeteria, she bumped into a friend of hers who was on the way back to class, and who looked at Holly with an odd expression.

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” she asked. “Where are you –ah!”

She didn’t get to finish the question as Holly grabbed her arm and headed for the door. “The school is in danger,” Holly explained. “You need to get outsi….”

Her words faded as a smooth, calculating laugh began to echo around the room, and the air itself seemed to darken. Immediately Holly grabbed the only weapon she had on her, a braided monkey fist (all her favored weapons were stored in Nara’s saddle outside, seeing as how they technically weren’t allowed on school grounds), as a voice spoke as if from the walls themselves.

“You think being outside keeps you safe?” it chided. “It’s not as if I am unable to leave the building here.”

A shadow swept across the wall, stalling the masses of students beginning to swarm through the doorways in order to head outside, and a figure appeared to step straight out of the shadow and onto the tables of the cafeteria, leering down at the children and teachers.

He was at least eight feet tall, dressed in a black gown-like robe that appeared to suck in the light around him and almost meld into his skin where it reached his neck and arms. His skin was pale, deathly, his figure thin and his profile predatory, accentuated by a narrow, pointed nose, yellowish brown eyes, and black hair that swept backward into a spiky crown. It took all of half a second for Holly to recognize him.

“Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me,” she groaned. “Who on earth brought _you_ to life?”

“You know who I am then?”

“Pitch Black, who else?” Holly snapped back. “And don’t expect me to be afraid of the bogeyman; this is just sad.”

Pitch chuckled, turning to face Holly fully. “Oh, I see, you’re his sister, aren’t you?” he mused, a venomous smile growing on his face. “Yes, you are familiar with the tale of a villain for a child’s story, pitted against characters with truly equally dark backgrounds painted as heroes. And let me guess, you think that I fight with an army of horses just like that character, don’t you?”

Holly managed to hold the unease off her face, and kept glaring at Pitch to keep the figure’s focus on her as the population of the school quietly exited out other paths and emergency doors. Soon there was only Holly, her friend, and the adults of the front office still in the room.

Pitch waved his hand, and from it poured an anthracite substance like tar sand. “Honestly, I appreciate the play on words your moviemakers messed with,” he toned, “but a nightmare should be something that even a grown man would fear. I think this is a far better version.”

The sand substance swirled upward, gathering above Pitch’s head. A long, whip-like tail formed, split at the end and tipped with a pair of razor sharp edges, and a body with four limbs followed, each leg ending in a set of long, hideous talons. Curved scimitar-like wings flared out, and finally, a wide, triangular head with beady eyes, tall horns extending from its nose and chin, and a beak filled with razor teeth turned its gaze on the people below.

It was a monster most had never seen the likes of before, and Holly immediately began backing toward the door, pushing her friend behind her. Pitch stepped forward in turn, the creature alighting on the table next to him.

“How much would it hurt him, for the dragon boy to lose his sister?” he queried, and the monster leapt forward.

* * *

I reached the building and barged through the front doors, Nara taking the initiative and following right in behind me, just as the creature attacked.

“Holly!” I screamed, spikes growing on my tail as I cocked it back, readying to pincushion the abomination.

I needn’t have worried. As it barreled into the spot Holly had been a moment before, my sister pushed her friend out of the way and dropped to the ground, twisting herself to the side before swinging her hand up, the monkey fist she grasped following. The hard metal ball at the end slammed hard directly into the creature’s eye, burying deep.

The monster screamed as the side of its face dissolved back into the unnatural sand it had come from, and Holly leapt up, twisting herself around its neck and landing a punch directly to the back of the neck, a blow that would snap vertebrae. A moment later, the entire monster fell, dissolving away completely.

“I train with some of the best fighters in existence,” Holly panted, “and that includes dragons of all types. I’m _not_ your average helpless ditsy teenager.” Then she turned her head to her friend, and the remaining teachers and staff, all of whom were standing there staring at her in shock. “Get out! What are you waiting for?!” she snapped, running to Nara and grabbing out a more substantial weapon: one of her scimitar swords.

Meanwhile, I took the moment of pause to swing my now barbed tail toward Pitch, who ducked and vanished into the walls. “Holly, you and Nara get into the air!” I ordered. “And don’t come down until I say that you –look out!”

Holly spun and locked blades with the battleaxe-like weapon that Pitch swung, but she wasn’t strong enough to hold him off and began to buckle under the pressure. Nara screeched and fired, the magnesium flame driving Pitch backward and giving Holly just enough time to run over and clamber into the saddle, the two taking off out the doorways.

Pitch turned to face me instead, his first target gone and leaving him huffing. “Very well,” he conceded, side-stepping toward the door, “one option blacked out. But, even if your sister stays out of reach she was not my only intent.” A flick of his hand and a torrent of black sand exploded out toward me.

I swept my own hand to the side, the field that fired deflecting the attack with ease, but the distraction did its job: Pitch disappeared into the walls once again and vanished. I growled and raced out the front doors, only to almost run into Embron, with Kingsley around his neck.

“Whoa! Hey, what’s the trouble here?” the Nightmare asked.

“Pitch Black, and he said he’s got another target still,” I said. “If he’s left the school grounds here, wherever he’s headed is a bigger…”

As Twintail, Amethyst, and Teshra arrived, carrying the two cats and Zipeau, I realized exactly where Pitch was probably headed.

“Everyone to the college!” I ordered. “Amethyst, you’re the fastest; wait a few minutes, and if Toothless and Thorn head here you can redirect them, or the other riders!”

“Got it!” she agreed, flying up to check on Holly and Nara above us. The rest of us meanwhile turned tail and bolted toward the university. It was the center of the city and the biggest concentration of people, especially as it was still late in the semester and midday. If Pitch wanted to do damage, that was where he would head.

* * *

Sharon had been at the university for nearly three years, and in that time she had quickly found that it wasn’t unusual for technology to have fits for the oddest of reasons; it was an old campus, even if the buildings were being regularly renovated recently, and so various components occasionally failed.

So, when the lights in the room suddenly went out, the brunette and her classmates weren’t all that concerned. Even the professor just groaned before reaching for his phone to call up the tech support people and complain.

Then the shriek sounded, and a swirling shadow coalesced in the corner of the room. Two black, beady eyes glinted in the low light, scanning the room as the barbed double tail swept the air, and the thing growled again, bearing rows of incredibly long teeth.

It was hard to tell who moved first, the creature or the students. In seconds, the entire room was up in chaos, students screaming as they fled for the door or dodged the beast as it leapt through the air, wings flapping haphazardly as it skidded across the smooth table surfaces.

Sharon was one of the last to exit through one of the two doors to the room, belongings rapidly forgotten as she scrambled out into the hall only to almost run head-first into the creature as it ripped through the other door, cornering her against the wall of the hallway.

“Oh God, HELP ME!!” she screamed, ducking barely out of the way as the open mouth slammed forward and into the wall, tearing apart the drywall and paint with ease. Sharon rolled away before stumbling to her feet and bolting down the hall. She didn’t get far, halting abruptly as she let out a choking cry of pain and looked down.

The two barbed tail tips had speared straight through her lower back and were protruding out either side of her abdomen, and a savage hiss echoed as the creature dragged her back toward it. Sharon couldn’t breathe at all from the combination of terror and pain, the agony spiking as the creature removed its tails with a sickening slurping noise and loomed over her, watching almost as if with morbid curiosity as streams of blood trailed down to the floor from the girl’s wounds. Her silent cry reached no ears.

An entirely different roar echoed down the hall, and a streak of fire slammed into the creature shortly before an armored paw sank long talons into its back, ending the monstrosity. The owner of the paw then came into view, but Sharon’s terror level didn’t abate in the slightest.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re safe now,” the dragon said softly, both his heads coming down to check on her and doing their best to hide the protruding teeth they possessed, before one paw came up and pressed against the side of the left head. “Hey Hawken, we’ve got an injured individual, two stab wounds; you’d better get down here, pronto.”

A reply came in over what Sharon slowly realized through her haze of agony and terror was a headset of sorts. “What building you in?”

“The bottom floor of, uh, Mich…Michen…something?”

“Michener, got it. I’ll be there shortly.”

The dragon lowered his gaze again and smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll be alright,” he reassured. “We won’t let anything further happen.”

* * *

I found Twintail just outside one of the larger classrooms underneath the library, guarding a young woman who had clearly been hurt badly. Even twenty feet away I picked up the unsettling iron smell of blood in massive quantity. As I demorphed next to her and placed my hands above the wounds, Twintail filled me in on what happened.

“A Bioraptor got to her before I did, but I destroyed it before it could manage to finish the job,” he said. “Pitch is clearly planning on releasing a bunch of these things to do however they please.”

I should explain: Bioraptors were the title for a hideous alien in a movie almost ironically called Pitch Black. These weren’t exactly the same, having front limbs and actual eyes, but the resemblance was uncanny and could not possibly be coincidence. It was also entirely fitting that Pitch would use the demonic creations from a movie bearing his moniker to do his bidding. They were far more formidable than horses too, especially if they were going to show up in numbers.

As the woman’s wounds healed over and the fearful gaze in her eyes began to diminish, I softly asked, “Can you tell me your name?”

“S-Sharon,” she stammered.

I nodded and smiled. “Okay, Sharon, Twintail here is going to take you outside with the other students, and I need you to listen to what he says very closely, okay?”

She slowly nodded, looking nervously back at the Zippleback. “Don’t worry,” I reassured, “he won’t hurt you; he’s my brother, so to speak.”

After making sure Sharon wouldn’t have a panic attack, I left the two of them and took to the skies again, a sliver of relief making itself known within me when I spotted Amethyst and Toothless with Thorn, Orha and Ember, and the rest of the team in tow behind them. Toothless had in his paws not only Astrid’s axe, but he also had Framherja in his grip, which I hadn’t realized Hiccup had dropped. Thorn was also carrying several weapons, namely Hiccup and Astrid’s Mysteel swords; that was not a good sign, as that meant the two of them had been almost completely unarmed. Unfortunately I couldn’t afford to focus on that right then, what with the disaster in the making unfolding below.

As they approached, the two weapon-bearing dragons handed the items to me for safekeeping, and Amethyst glanced around, asking soberly, “What’s the situation?”

“Bioraptors are showing up and have begun attacking students,” I replied, waving a paw and healing over some of the scratches that I spotted on Snotlout and company. “I already got calls from Twintail and Feren to deal with casualties, but no direct sightings of Pitch yet. This is a big campus though; everyone take one building and search it thoroughly. I know these things have the same shadow-travel capacity I do, but better to have our guard up everywhere rather than wait for things to blow up.

“Amethyst, head to the police building and get whoever hasn’t been sent out by the attacks already to call out an evacuation. Ember, Orha, take the science hall; we cannot afford to let Pitch figure out where all the chemicals and sharp objects are, because he will use them to every advantage he can. The rest of you, spread out. Go!”

They did as told, while I headed to the University Center, morphing Shadow and melting straight through the windows, rematerializing in front of a very shocked presenter in the upper ballroom.

“Really sorry for the interruption,” I apologized, “but everyone needs to clear out! The college is under attack!”

“An attack? By who?”

I rolled my eyes; there was always the skeptic and this one was sitting in the first row. “You really don’t want to know,” I replied.

Just as if to prove my point, another of the demonic sand creatures exploded out of the wall nearby, screaming in my direction. This was the first time I had actually faced one head-on, and as it approached I noticed something truly unsettling: beyond the programmed aggression I expected in the dead eyes, I saw a glimmer of familiarity, and a hatred that spewed out like molten lead. Pitch didn’t just have an army, he’d given a new physical form for the demons we had encountered in the Western Atlantic of Hiccup’s world, and I remembered this one.

I didn’t take time to dwell on the fact however, as the abomination neared. My hand spun, Mysteel blade materializing in my grip and flashing in an arc. It cleaved through the nightmare, ending (perhaps only temporarily I now knew) another threat, and I watched for a moment as the sand substance fell to the ground and faded away.

“I’ll say it again: everyone needs to get out now!” I repeated. This time, there were no skeptics, and no one hesitated.

* * *

Snotlout and Fireworm headed to the far north end of the campus, landing and barging in through the front doors of the music hall. The alarm had just begun going off as a police announcement broadcasted out of the speakers scattered around campus, and students were beginning to flood from their classrooms. The Viking knew there was going to be an unwanted side-effect of his being there though (but he would never say he didn’t enjoy the attention), and sure enough, several of the college attendees stopped and stared in shock when they spotted Snotlout marching through the hall. He rolled his eyes in response.

“Yeah, get over it, there’s a movie character standing in front of you,” he snarked. “Move it people! This is an evacuation, not a stand and admire my glory moment!”

To emphasize the order, Fireworm reared up as best she could in the cramped space and flared her wings, roaring loud enough to rattle the walls. To their credit, the gawkers got the message and moved on.

Then the lights went out, and hideous screeches echoed through the building, followed by the screams of several students. Snotlout drew the decorated sword Hawken had finally allowed him to carry in one hand and brandished his war hammer in the other, before charging in the direction of the noise.

Skidding around the corner, he nearly ran into a pair of Bioraptors cornering a small group of students. The closest one whirled and snarled at him, whipping its double tail at his chest with barbs sharp and at the ready. Both of them bounced harmlessly however off of the Viking’s chest plate, and he smirked.

“Can’t do much against Mysteel, can you?” he gloated, before yelling and slamming his hammer into the demon’s side. The weapon caved in the torso and flattened the Bioraptor to the ground, ending it, before Snotlout followed through with a swing of his sword at the second.

It dodged, but the move gave enough room for the trapped students to make a break for it. A third Bioraptor appeared, preparing to leap onto Snotlout’s less guarded back, but Fireworm snaked her head forward and clamped her jaws down hard around its neck, leaving Snotlout to face the second on his own still.

“Come on, you ugly turd, take your best shot!” he taunted. The demon shrieked and dodged to one side, before lunging inward. Snotlout curled his lip and stabbed the sword forward, skewering the Bioraptor.

“Alright then,” he breathed, turning and looking at Fireworm triumphantly as she spat out the one she’d finished chewing on, “who’s next?”

His growing smirk faltered when Fireworm’s eyes grew wide, and she fixated directly behind him. Snotlout turned, and blanched at the sight of Pitch glaring down, towering over the Viking.

“Snotlout, is it?” Pitch queried, a predatory smile appearing. “Ah yes, the boy with the massive ego and a small brain to match. You were foolish enough to come down here on your own?”

“No, I have Fireworm to back me up,” Snotlout protested, trying to sound tough as he pretended to adjust his helmet, covertly pressing the com button as he did so. “You brought a bunch of stupid sand monsters as your cohort, so it’s more like you’re on your own. Who’s really got the short end of the stick here?”

Snotlout glanced around. “Kind of funny actually,” he drawled, continuing to stall. “Pitch Black in the music building; I didn’t think you were the type to have a rhythmic side.”

Pitch only chuckled as he advanced a step, Snotlout involuntarily mirroring it in reverse. “Perhaps I do; music can convey terror almost as well as I,” he mused. “But in here, there are also a thousand places to hide you and your dragon for days after I’m done before anyone would ever find you.” He raised his hand, and on cue the tar sands began swirling around the walls, dozens of Bioraptors forming out of the torrent. Snotlout paled even further, and began backing up toward Fireworm, earning another cackle from the black figure before him.

“You see,” Pitch taunted, “my special trait is not making armies out of nothing. Sure, it helps win fights, but it’s not my greatest weapon.” He leaned down, yellowish eyes glinting madly. “I know what you fear, Snotlout: fighting, and dying, on your own with no one else to save you, while facing something you know you can’t win against. You’re afraid that by failing to fight me, you’ll fail in everyone else’s eyes as well. And you’re right.”

Pitch stepped forward, his giant pickaxe-like weapon appearing in his hands again. A short whistle sounded, and he swung, the nightmares surrounding him swarming in at the signal.

As soon as they moved, however, something else also made its appearance.

* * *

I surged out of the wall as I threw ropes of black at him, slamming Pitch into the far wall with the force and cutting short the attack of the Bioraptors. Demorphing and taking advantage of Pitch’s stunned daze, I ran over to Snotlout. “You alright?”

“I almost wasn’t,” he snapped tersely, but nodded. Then he looked behind me and yelled, “Look out!”

I spun and flashed my sword as Pitch’s weapon came down, the two blades meeting in a dramatic explosion of black, but the sand pickaxe only reformed the head as Pitch drew away slightly, no true damage done. The Bioraptors had swept in as well, forcing me on the defensive as I swung out a bladed tail. Nearby, Snotlout and Fireworm moved back, attacking as fast as they could but gaining no ground through the swarm.

“I have a weapon that doesn’t ever break, and I don’t tire easily,” Pitch sneered.

“Same thing here,” I countered, spinning the sand blade away from my head once more and then cutting down a nightmare creature as it leapt from the side at me. “Mysteel is nearly indestructible, and I can feed off the power grid here for energy; I can fight for a very long time. Not to mention, you’re only getting yourself cornered.”

Pitch glanced quickly behind him to see Amethyst and Toothless plowing through the swarm of Bioraptors in the hall, heading straight for him. He snarled and suddenly vanished back into the walls; in his place, a river of sand poured across the floor. I flared a pair of wings and leapt up, backpedaling to avoid it, the two Night Furies doing the same, but the sand followed me up into the air, and a wall of black swept around and encased me for a split second.

Suddenly, I wasn’t at the university anymore. I faltered in midair, beating my wings frantically as I tried to reorient myself, and stared in shock down at Berk, far below me. There was no way that was possible, unless…unless Pitch used shadows to somehow teleport.

Then the silence hit me. If I were back at the village, even from the height I flew at I should at least have been hearing dragon roars and the scuffling of people as they dealt with Dagur and Alvin, or began cleaning up. Instead, there was nothing; even the air held dead still.

I dove down to the village below, flaring my wings as I swept over the houses and took in the gruesome sight that finally began to explain the odd suspended amination of the atmosphere. There was absolutely no way that what I saw could have taken place in the few minutes since we had left, but nevertheless the scene was splayed out before me.

Vikings and dragons alike were strewn through the streets, unmoving and lifeless; among them were not only residents of Berk, but Berserkers as well. Whoever had done this didn’t care about sides, and I had a very strong guess as to who was the responsible party, which only worsened the pain I was feeling.

Near the forge, Mulch and Bucket lay across the shaft of a shattered brazier, both of them with their remaining limbs snapped, and what looked like shrapnel sticking out of every place that armor hadn’t covered. My heart stopped when I spotted Gobber not much further, lying face down in the dirt with his axe arm attachment wrenched off nearby and a massive blade embedded in his back. I landed, placing a hand to his neck, before choking on my breath when no signs of life were detectable; he was gone.

My heart started up again shortly afterward, beginning to race as the panic set in, and then, only then, did I glance down the road toward the docks.

“Oh my God, STOICK!! VALKA!!” I screamed, racing toward them and their dragons. I was clearly too late, however; Stoick had been speared through the chest, Thornado’s right wing ripped off and missing and a poisoned arrow embedded in his jaw. Valka fared no better, bullet holes littering the spaces between her armor plates, and a permanent, lifeless expression of fear painted across her face. She was still grasping her staff, the end stretched toward Cloudjumper, who lay on the ground just a short ways away with his neck twisted at a grotesque angle.

I dropped to my knees, the tears already spilling out as sobs wracked my body. I dared not look any further, to where I could see a hand limply grasping Sigrid Hofferson’s medical bag around the corner of a house, as I wept for everything that had gone wrong. We had left chasing a distraction, clearly leaving Berk open for attack by something much worse that Malin had brought in his wake. He knew where the portal was, too, so if…

My head snapped upward, the dread that had filled me upon first seeing the village returning tenfold as a new terror filled my mind. “Holly,” I whispered, morphing immediately and bolting for the portal.

* * *

Ember and Orha slammed the doors open just in time to see the black mass sweep up and surround Hawken, enclosing him in a floating, shifting sphere. Toothless and Amethyst were turning in circles, looking for Pitch as they fought off the Bioraptors simultaneously.

Ember drew her sword, heat billowing out from her skin and forcing several of the demons back as she advanced into the hall, covered from behind by the whipping blades of the shrouded Shadowracer.

“Release him and show yourself Pitch, you simpering coward!” she yelled, driving her blade through the Bioraptor Toothless threw toward her. Laughter answered, followed by a vicious swing as Pitch stepped out, his weapon clashing in sand and fire with Ember’s blade. Toothless roared and leapt toward the villain, only to be forced back as the weapon came down toward his head. Then it swung back again to meet Ember’s sword, the force behind it driving her feet back in a painful squeal across the floor.

“Why on earth would I release him?” Pitch queried tauntingly. “He’s out of the way, so it’s one less variable to deal with, and the biggest one to boot. Not to mention with this I might just break him permanently.” He sneered as a pair of Bioraptors crawled around him and dove for Ember, who dodged the attack and let both of the abominations fly past her to meet Orha’s fire head-on. Then she whipped her sword back toward Pitch.

“What do you mean, break him?” she hissed.

“I mean he’s surrounded by the one thing he fears the most: the death of everyone he cares about, because of his own foolish mistakes,” Pitch returned, cackling as Ember’s expression paled. Hawken was strong, a soul that had kept the rest of them going at one time or another, but they’d all been around at least once when his newfound night terrors struck. If they didn’t remove him from the hallucination, or whatever it may have been, in the sphere, they risked him being driven mad, truly broken.

That, Ember realized, was the real reason Malin had sent Pitch.

With a savage cry, the warrioress slashed at the black robed entity with renewed vigor, only to be driven back again as more of the sand demons encircled her, one gaining a lucky shot as one of its barbed tails penetrated the chink in her armor on her side. She gasped in pain as fire of an entirely different kind than her own raced up her abdomen, and she doubled over.

The Bioraptor snarled and leapt at her, only to be cut down by Fireworm, who had managed to fight her way through the hall to them, Snotlout right behind her. As the Nightmare hovered over Ember, joining Orha in protecting the wounded warrior, Snotlout came up behind Pitch and swung his hammer, the bludgeon slamming into the figure’s side and knocking Pitch into the wall. As he groaned and rolled over form the unexpected attack, Snotlout marched in with dark eyes to finish the job, sword held high and hammer falling fast.

Pitch’s eyes widened, realizing he was in a truly compromised position, and he vanished again, sinking into the shadows once more.

“Damn it!” Snotlout yelled, his hammer slamming into the wall and leaving a very sizeable hole in the plaster and wood, to match the rest of the damage that now decorated the building.

Ember looked up, holding her side and watching as several dozen of the Bioraptors vanished into the walls as well. “He’s…moving to another building,” she wheezed. “We…we need to find him again.”

“Are you sure you’re okay enough to move?” Orha questioned worriedly, finally coming into view as his tail skewered one last lingering sand demon, Amethyst flattening another.

Ember nodded. “No choice. We head to the science hall again, Snotlout to the central campus residence halls. Toothless, take the south –ow!- end of campus.” She turned to look worriedly at the sphere in the middle of the hall, shifting and changing shape to match what she assumed was Hawken morphing inside.

“Amethyst, do whatever you have to in order to get Hawken out of that thing,” she ordered. “The longer he’s in there, the more likely we risk actually losing him.”

Amethyst nodded and immediately whirled to face the sphere, slamming her paws into its surface to no effect. Ember winced, but focused on her task, finding Pitch. She and Orha limped out, followed by Snotlout, Fireworm, and Toothless, just in time to hear and see the thunderous crack of the northern end of the University Center caving in.

Amethyst, meanwhile, focused her attention solely on the sphere containing her brother. “Hawken? Hawken, can you hear me?” she yelled desperately, but no reply came from within. She reared back again and slammed her paws into the sand once more. The surface seemed to ripple out from the impact, but the substance rolled back into place with ease, as if it had never been touched.

Amethyst’s ears perked then, catching a faint sound from within, but it wasn’t the noise of anything positive. Hawken was yelling, his voice choked by sobs, and then a painful silence replaced it.

Amethyst’s eyes widened, pupils slitting in fear for her brother, and she roared again, “HAWKEN!!”

Nothing answered, so she turned to her next option: fire. Taking in a breath, the building scream of a Night Fury sounded out before she let loose. The plasma slammed point blank into the sphere, the shockwave forcing Amethyst to close her eyes and brace herself for a moment. When she opened them, a sizeable dent had been blown into the sphere, and it was taking time to replace itself.

<A little more power,> the Night Fury decided, and crouched down, taking aim and praying she didn’t somehow kill Hawken in the process.

As she’d promised her brother, when he and the others had left (and several times after they had returned), Amethyst had gone out to the barrens to try and practice using the electrokinetic skill she had, and she’d figured out the key to unleashing it.

Her spinal crests split, and the scales around them began to fluoresce violet as Amethyst focused, charging up. Seconds later, sparks and currents of lightning began to dance across her skin, and she fired once more.

* * *

The city was noiseless in the distance when I burst through the portal, and the first thing I saw, immediately, was the state of our house: the back caved in as if something huge had slammed into it. As I slowly walked forward, the paw of one of our dogs caught my eyes, sticking out from under the rubble of our kitchen. I screamed and ran forward, but it was too late again; she was gone.

Then, the cause of the cave-in made itself known to me: the tails of two different dragons were lying at horrible angles, also buried under what was once the roof. I immediately recognized one as a Night Fury’s tail, and I rapidly scrambled to uncover the rest.

When I unearthed the edges of a saddle, that told me immediately who it was, and the next slab of plaster moved confirmed it: Toothless, lying with his eyes open, a beam from the house jammed straight through his neck and sticking out of both sides.

“He tried to rescue them,” a voice suddenly spoke up nearby. I jerked and spun around, only to find my mother standing there, still in uniform. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes simultaneously both hollow with death and filled with anger and anguish.

“He was too late,” she continued. “He…they’re all gone, she’s gone.” Then she broke down again, and the worst feeling ran through me. Slowly, I turned, and picked up a slab of sheetrock covering the second dragon.

Nara was the other dragon, and lying under her, broken and unmoving, was a figure with long, brown hair, hazel eyes, and what once was the face I had cared about more than anything else.

An inhuman scream ripped out of my lungs as I dropped to my knees and pulled her into my arms, a pain I could not possibly describe burning to my core. “HOOOLLLYYY!!! NOOOOO!!!!” I screamed again, sobs wracking my body as I buried my face in her hair, not a breath of life, not even the slightest twitch felt under my hands.

“No, no, no no no no no! This can’t be happening, no!” I sobbed, rocking back and forth in a state that no words could cover.

“You…you disappeared, and they poured through the portal.”

I barely heard my mother whisper the words, and I turned, only just able to make out her outline through the blurry tears as she walked aimlessly toward me. “They destroyed the city,” she continued. “The university, the capitol building, the air base. Sam came back here to find you, was shot on the road, and Holly tried to fight them off. That…that man, whatever he was, threw them into the ground, then through the house, and then he did the same to Toothless.”

Her expression suddenly changed like a switch, anger taking hold. “I got here only in time to see my daughter die, and my son was nowhere to be found. Where were you?!”

Then my mother did something she had never done: she punched me full in the jaw, sending me reeling. “You were supposed to protect her, you were supposed to keep her safe!” she screamed.

I scrambled back, still holding Holly as a new pain, even deeper than I had already been feeling despite how I thought that wasn’t possible, hit me: blame, not only for all of Berk but for the death of my family. I opened my mouth, but I could not physically form words to reply, as my mother yelled at me again with tears flowing freely from her eyes once more.

“How could you be my son?!” she screamed. “How could you leave Holly on her own?! How could you leave everyone, when we needed you?! This is your fault!!”

“I’M SORRY!!!” I screamed back, finally finding my voice, even as it wavered and rasped in agony. “I was fighting! I was trying to keep everyone safe! I wasn’t good enough!”

That last sentence made me curl over, unable to look up at my mother. “I’m a failure,” I whispered. “I…I couldn’t save her.”

An explosion sounded from somewhere in the distance, but I ignored it. Almost everyone that I cared about was gone, and I knew those who were left wouldn’t be for long; what did I have left to fight for? I only buried my face against Holly’s cold neck again.

“I’m sorry Holly,” I cried once more, not even strength enough for tears within me as I rocked back and forth. “I’m so sorry.”

Another explosion rocked the air, this time close enough for me to feel it, but I didn’t care. I wanted to die, and if it was by a bomb then so be it; at least it would be quick, and I would see Holly again. I simply cradled my sister and closed my eyes as a wave of heat rolled over me and sharp projectiles pierced my side. Then I was blown backward, and lost my hold on my sister.

Then, I hit tile floor, and felt a scaly snout press against my face.

“Hawken? Hawken, please answer me!” Amethyst’s voice came in, filtering through my deadened senses. “Are you okay? Please say something!”

Slowly, I opened my eyes to see Amethyst standing over me, eyes wide in fear and nostrils puffing away. Above her, I saw the damaged ceiling of the music hall. There was no way that could have been; I was just sitting in my destroyed house!

I jerked upright, and looked around. “What?” I said confusedly, taking in the sight before me as my mind tried to wade through the wave of confusion and agony that still coursed through me. The walls were littered with holes and scorch marks, the floor covered in a physical remnant of the blackish sand substance Pitch fought with.

“No, wait…I...but I was at…” I stumbled, still gripped by the pain of loss and fighting to make sense of what was going on.

“Pitch trapped you in a nightmare,” Amethyst said, garnering my attention again. “You’ve been here this whole time, in an illusion.”

I shook my head. “No, I saw…I saw the village destroyed. I held my sister, it…it…”

“It was a fake, a terror meant to break you,” Amethyst insisted again. “Holly is fine, everyone else is still alive. Call her if you need to.” She sat down, tail curling around me as I immediately flipped on my com and called up my sister’s frequency.

“Holly? Are you there?”

“Is it safe to come down yet?” the almost sarcastic reply immediately came in. I broke down crying again, hugging Amethyst’s neck tightly out of sheer relief, and completely ignoring the bored tone that Holly was using.

“Uh, Hawken, you okay there?” Holly asked when I continued crying. I sniffled a bit before nodding to myself, and then replying with a shaky, but far lighter voice.

“Yes, yes I am now,” I said. “No, it’s not safe to come down; Pitch is still here and I won’t have him sending through what we’re dealing with here. And Holly, do NOT hesitate to call me if you need help up there if he does show up.”

“Okay, got it,” she sighed, before turning off the com at her end.

I looked up at Amethyst, letting go of her neck as I stood up, expression hardening. “ _That_ was way too far,” I growled. “I’m not pulling any punches at this point; Pitch is going to die as soon as I get to him.”

“So now it’s shoot first, ask questions never?” Amethyst queried, putting on a smirk but clearly holding a deeper concern beneath; she knew it must have taken a lot to push me over to a mindset like that. “You sound like Snotlout now.”

I grimaced at that, but nodded anyway. “Yeah, well, if that does it, then so be it. You get a shot anywhere, take it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do you kill a Shadow? With another Shadow. Among the fictional villains I'm familiar with, one of the few that I imagined Malin might think up that could go on par with my character when in Shadow Dragon morph was Pitch Black. Things are gonna devolve pretty quick from here out.


	21. Counter Moves

_Battle is a dance_

_One action, one reaction_

_One move, one response_

_One word, one scream_

_A ballet of bruises and tears_

Dr. Makesey had not received the notice of evacuation, having been busy in the lab where no speakers were present and the walls were thick, both for protection of the contents inside and those who were outside.

Thus, as he came up the stairway into the main hall of the science building, the sheer stillness and lack of sound immediately struck him as concerning. It certainly wasn’t so late in the day that people would already have left for home; heck, the sun was just nearing the middle of the sky outside, and there weren’t any major events scheduled that would have encouraged students to skip class either.

Before Makesey could ponder further where everyone had gone however, the sound of something rough and sharp sliding and clicking across the tile floors drew his attention down the hallway.

A fiery haired young woman dressed in the oddest outfit the professor had ever seen at the school came sliding around the corner, wincing as she bent the wrong way and pulled the wound in her side. She was completely covered in a slick black material, jointed and plated in several locations with something more rigid underneath, and over her head was a unique form-fitting helmet that held her hair down along her back. Right behind her, a somewhat more familiar sight to Dr. Makesey came skidding around the corner across the tiles: a large, black-scaled dragon with deep teal-green eyes.

“Hawken!” Dr. Makesey called out, immediately making the assumption that, as this was a dragon, it must be the young man who could turn into such things (after all, up until that day the general public had been kept from knowing about the rest of Hawken’s secrets). “I apologize if I’m interrupting something,” he continued when the woman and dragon turned to face him with wide eyes, “but I wanted to let you know what we found out about the venom. It’s incredible, a triple-recognition system and rapid cascade enzyme complexes”-

“I’m very sorry to interrupt you,” the dragon spoke, a deeper voice that clearly did not belong to the dragon man, “but I am not Hawken. And you are in very serious danger being in here.”

Dr. Makesey stopped, eyes widening in surprise. “You…you’re a dragon, but you’re not…you’re not Hawken?”

“Yeah, secret’s out, there are actual full dragons that exist,” the woman said, moving forward with a wince and taking the professor’s shoulder. “But that is something to discuss later. The campus is being evacuated, and it’s not safe for you to be in here.”

“What? Why, what happened?”

“The University center has been caved in all along the northern face, and Pitch is probably heading here. He has the intent to flatten the entire university, with as many people as he can still in the”-

SCREEEEEE!!!

Ember let go of the professor and spun, driving her blade through the nightmare creature as Orha roared and brought his tail blades down on a second; it was at this point that Makesey finally noticed both of them were heavily armed as well as armored, not something normally permitted on campus either.

“Move!” Ember yelled, urging Dr. Makesey toward the doors and wincing as her sudden exertion re-opened the gash, only for a wall of black to sweep across the exit. Then, Pitch stepped out of the blackened shadows that formed, holding in one hand a new, shorter blade of black than he had been using, and in the other hand he balanced a chemical container.

Dr. Makesey’s eyes widened again as he recognized the label, a caustic poison restricted to use only in graduate lab experiments. He turned to run toward the other doors, only to find Orha and Ember being pushed back from them as well by another swirling wall of sand, this one morphing into a small army of the Bioraptors.

“Going somewhere already?” Pitch queried, feigning innocence. “Come now, the festivities have only just started, you don’t want to miss out on the fun! Demolish a building, poison a professor and the fire girl, and then we’ll see about rounding up the students still on campus and letting the nightmares have their way with them!” He reared back the arm that held the chemical bottle and taunted, “Batter up!”

Then, Pitch’s feet were suddenly pulled out from under him, the jar falling from his hand only to be wrapped in shadow and vanish. Pitch hit the floor hard and rolled, brandishing his blade as black fire rolled through the air, clearing a path for Ember to take the professor outside even as the flames surrounded Pitch. A beam of energy followed the three heading outside, slamming into Ember and seeping into her wound, binding it up to nonexistence, and she gave a breath of relief as she hurried the professor away from the building.

When the red eyes appeared out of the flames, flickering to reveal even darker shades of scarlet than should be possible and emanating with fury, for the first time Pitch was the one to feel a tinge of fear.

* * *

“So, are you just afraid to look at me or have we actually managed to annoy you that badly already?”

Jake groaned and swung his head around, fiery eyes glaring at Astrid as she smirked, already knowing the answer. The warrioress was slowly becoming more than a match for the diamondback’s level of patience, not that Jake would ever admit such a fact out loud for her to hear, and it was only made worse by the current set of circumstances he found himself stuck in.

Jake was the kind of personality that liked to deal with obstacles directly, promptly, and with finality, but unfortunately he couldn’t very well just shoot Hiccup and Astrid, or simply throw them out of the plane, without not only losing the leverage the two had on Hawken and his friends but also having Malin come down on the rattler’s head, hard.

Truthfully, the fear of what the man was capable of was about the only thing that was preventing Jake from taking him out as well, for all the secrets Malin was purposefully holding from him.

“I knew it,” Astrid stated triumphantly, smirk growing wider as she saw the look in Jake’s eyes. Most people would have been cowering under the reptile’s gaze, but the blonde had never been one to shrink under a look. As best as she could when bound by the rattler’s coils, she nudged Hiccup and drawled, “Too bad they didn’t have Camicazi around to capture; she would’ve driven him to suicide by this point. I mean, if harmless banter gets to you this easily I can only imagine–hnnngg!”

“Shut yer damn mouth woman!” Jake snapped, squeezing down on the two captives hard enough to cut off their breathing. “I may not be allowed to kill you, but just about anything else is fair game, you understand?” A savage hiss left his throat as he bared his foot long fangs, eyes brightening in irritation.

The look in not only Astrid’s but also Hiccup’s eyes made him question his outburst however; neither of them showed any particular level of fear at the statement. As his coils loosened semi-involuntarily so that they could breathe again, Hiccup spoke, explaining the lack concern that they portrayed.

“I lost my leg once in a fight with a dragon the size of a mountain,” he said quietly. “We’ve both watched as a demonic illusion of a sea serpent tried to destroy us and our friends, far away from any possible help we could have called on. I experienced the pain of nearly losing both my father and brother, and Astrid and I were both there, twice, when a centuries-old sorceress attempted to level our village.”

The young man’s gaze hardened then. “A hundred foot snake with a short temper is nothing to contend with compared to those experiences,” he quipped.

Jake’s jaw worked as he both tried to come up with a decent retaliation and resist the temptation to just eat the pair then and there and remove the headache entirely, unpalatable as that may have been. Finally, he settled with turning his head away with a growl, fixing his gaze on the side of the bay of the jet as it continued its journey, taking all of them to what would be Hiccup and Astrid’s drop-off point.

After a couple more minutes Jake heard a sigh escape Astrid, and braced himself for another attempt at banter or conversation. Sure enough…

“With nothing else to do here you could at least tell us where we are headed,” the young woman groused. “Or at least a hint. If we’re stuck here until then”-

“Why would I feel obliged to tell you something like that?” Jake snapped, head twisting around again.

“Well, it’s not like we currently have the capability of phoning Hawken and telling him ‘we’re headed to so-and-so’,” Hiccup snarked. “After all, Malin ripped off the coms and my wing set.” He started to continue, before he caught the look in Jake’s eyes, a slip-up the rattler hadn’t realized he’d made.

“You…you don’t even know where we’re headed, do you?” Hiccup asked.

“Of course I do!” Jake retorted, a little too quickly. “All it is is that there’s no need fer me to tell you two so”-

“We’ve both been around Stormfly long enough to spot a flat lie,” Astrid cut him off. “You don’t know where we’re headed.”

A moment passed before Jake glanced at the door to the cockpit, and scowled even further. “No,” he finally admitted, “Malin’s the only one who knows everything.” He muttered on, “Been at his side fer months now an’ he still doesn’t even bother te tell me what my actual part in all this is supposed to be.”

Hiccup glanced at Astrid, who had caught the same tone, and nodded. “You feel betrayed, don’t you?” Astrid asked quietly.

“That’s none o’ yer business,” Jake snapped back, looking away.

Hiccup shook his head however. “No, it’s actually entirely our business. It’s kind of what we were put together as a team for. You feel out of place, betrayed. You know that as soon as Malin is done with you he may well view you as no more than a liability, and then he might get rid of you. You’re afraid of him.”

“So what if I might be?” Jake quipped. “I know better ‘n the rest of you what he’s capable of.”

“But you know almost nothing about what we’re capable of,” Hiccup countered. “Do you really believe that you have to be permanently tied to Malin? What if you had the chance to change your path; would you?” He put on the upmost encouraging look that he could. “Would you take a different path, if you could?”

“It’s far too late fer that in any case, whether I wanted to or not, which I don’t,” Jake replied, though it lacked the venom he’d been speaking with before and both Vikings could hear the sliver of doubt in his voice.

“It’s never too late,” Hiccup continued to press, albeit gently. “Another individual we know was forgiven for 900 years of wrongdoing in a day; a few months by comparison is nothing. Everyone has that choice, at any time, that capacity to change. And whatever you think ties you to Malin, I’m certain it can be broken.”

Silence fell upon the jet, save the sounds of the engines outside, as Hiccup and Astrid watched Jake ponder their words. Both of them knew it was a long shot to get the rattlesnake to turn that quickly, but the seed had been planted.

It also told them both another important detail: whatever influence Malin seemed to possess now on those working for him, it was still more than able to be subject to outside influences as well.

Finally, Jake turned to his captives, coils loosening slightly as he did so, but when he opened his mouth to speak the jet suddenly rumbled and began to descend. Seconds later, the door to the cockpit swung open, and Malin stepped in, no longer dressed in the clean suit he’d been wearing before, but still adorned in an almost stylish military-brand tactical outfit. He crossed the space between them and came to stand in front of Jake.

“We’re landing shortly,” he announced. “Prepare to dump these two; we’ll give them the weapons we brought with us but nothing else,” Malin ordered, turning to the wall of the cargo bay and punching a sequence into the control box nearby. “This needs to happen quickly and without issues; we head to the bunker immediately following this.”

Mechanical gears began whining and clanking, and the cargo doors began to creak open, blasting the four in the space with hot, humid air as they continued to descend. Hiccup and Astrid looked out to see the canopy of a tropical forest spreading out beneath the jet, low mountains ringing the valley they were descending into.

Malin marched over to the small pile of Mysteel weapons that lay in the corner of the bay, those that he had removed after they had boarded the plane, and scooped them up: two swords, a small dagger, and Inferno, Hiccup’s fire blade.

When the plane came to hover no more than three feet above the overgrown runway below, Jake slithered forward and down the ramp, dragging the two Vikings with him. Hiccup and Astrid both struggled to extract their hands from the snake’s grip, and Hiccup fixed his gaze on Jake’s face.

“Jake, you have a choice!” he urged. “You don’t have to do this!”

For a moment Jake faltered, slowing and glancing at Hiccup and Astrid, expression harboring conflict. Then just as quickly, his eyes hardened and glowed all the brighter. “Yes I do,” he snarled as he twisted his tail around, coils loosening and flinging the captive pair off the edge of the ramp, both of them hitting the dirt hard and rolling. Seconds later, Malin flung their weapons to the ground haphazardly as well, and then slammed his hand down on the control, closing the doors as Jake backed up into the bay.

Astrid recovered faster than Hiccup did, rolling to her feet and leaping for her sword, kicking up dirt as she sped toward the ascending jet, yelling and trying to swing her sword into the craft. The jet had already begun to take off however, the backwash of the engines blowing her back and the sword missing by yards.

“Astrid, don’t!” Hiccup yelled, stumbling to his feet and running toward her. “It won’t do any good, not now! Save your energy!”

“They threw us out of a plane!” Astrid screamed back. “And left us in the middle of nowhere! We almost got through to Jake and he still did that, and you’re saying I can’t retaliate?!”

“I’m saying Jake really didn’t have a choice; going against Malin now would have made sure he died even if he did agree with us,” Hiccup responded. “And right now is not the time; we have bigger issues.”

As if to prove his point, a flash emanated from the exiting jet, and a wave of energy washed over the land. “Yep, Malin just did something to this place,” Hiccup continued. “I get the feeling it’s not safe to stay put either. We need to conserve our energy, find water, find somewhere where we’re at least moderately safe and Hawken can find us.” He turned and walked over to grab his two swords, securing Inferno on his leg and the decorated blade on his back where it belonged.

Astrid closed her eyes and sighed, before reluctantly nodding. “You’re right,” she finally admitted. “You’re right. But, where would Hawken find us? He could track us if we stayed here but if we move it will get harder for him to follow any sort of scent trail.”

A rumble of thunder rolled in the distance, prompting both of them to actually look around them: they were standing in a bowl-like valley, low mountain ranges and ridges snaking around the perimeter and fading into the distance, everything covered in thick forest. To the west, a front of dark clouds was beginning to build ominously.

“If it rains a scent trail won’t matter and he’ll have to search the island anyway,” Hiccup sighed. “I’d bet that we’re on an island; Malin wouldn’t drop us where there’s any sort of access to a lot of people. If we head toward the coast we’ll be able to stay more in the open and”-

CRASSSHHH!!

Both of them jerked and spun toward the forest as something knocked a tree down, and the constant rhythmic noise of heavy footfalls moved parallel to them.

“We’re not alone on this island then,” Astrid said quietly, backing up toward the opposite treeline.

Hiccup nodded. “Keep your voice low, head for the undergrowth,” he whispered. “Walk as quietly as you can. Whatever that was, I don’t think we want to get its attention.”

* * *

Jonathan Malin typically prided himself on being observant, or intuitive about how those around him worked and thought, so it wasn’t long on their trip back toward the mainland that he noticed Jake’s downtrodden expression, something he hadn’t seen on the rattlesnake before. It immediately set him on edge, suspicious that something had occurred while he’d been in the cockpit.

“Got a lot on your mind all of a sudden, Jake?” Malin asked, causing the rattler to look up in surprise, before his eyes hardened again.

“That’s what happens when ye leave me stuck with babysitting duty over a couple of bratty kids who won’t shut up,” he snapped. “They try te get into yer head and get you to look at everything differently, try te complicate things.” The snake slithered over to the side of the hold and coiled up, hiding his eyes with his hat as he settled. “Next time, you can just chain them up to the wall and not make me deal with the headache.”

Malin snorted. “Careful Jake. Remember that you work for me; I tell you to do something, you do it, otherwise it’s the end of the road for you.”

“And why is my suggestion so bad, care to explain? And concerning all this, what exactly is the point?”

Malin stopped for a moment, eyebrows rising as the question caught him off guard. “What are you trying to infer by that?” he asked guardedly.

Jake sighed, and looked up slightly. “As much fun as this is,” he began, “if yer plan works in the end there is always gonna be do-gooders like Hawken and his friends who won’t give up fer nothing, so you’ll never have a free day. And forgive me if I am blind to the wonders of such things, but I don’t see how ruling the world is any joyride.” He shifted in his coils, avoiding Malin’s gaze directly and resting his head on one of his bullet belts. “Personally, I think it’d be fine enough te just stake out a claim of yer own and hold it, rather ‘n try and claim the whole planet.”

“That was the deal I struck, and it will be done,” Malin growled, “whether or not that is what I intend in the long run for myself. And I’d be careful how you run your mouth, Jacob. I made you for a purpose, and if you fail to meet your mark you might also fail to exist.” He turned and marched through the cockpit door again, leaving Jake to mull over what had just transpired in silence.

Jake did not like the all-out war-for-the-world mindset. From the memories carried and implanted from the tale Malin had pulled him from, along with the recent experiences in reality, Jake was always more the hired hand, a mercenary, straddling the border between law and outlaw. The push and pull of all this was beginning to wear on him already, and while he didn’t mind being called out for a random job or other (so long as he was able to just get it done and over with, not this drawn-out mess), Jake was also a creature who wanted –needed- the opportunity to hide away and relax, unmolested by the world and its inhabitants. If Malin got his way, that chance would probably be gone, and Jake knew that there would be no redeeming quality left. No truth, no honor in what he did anymore, no respect, admiration, not even proper fear of a worthy adversary.

That thought did it. Jake prided himself on being truthful in his words and actions, and at least honorable (he’d never shoot a foe that lacked any means of defending themselves, unless they fully and truly deserved it), and he faced his enemies head-on, never backing down. There would be nothing but wandering around wiping up little skirmishes if this went through, and truth be told Jake was even starting to get sick of receiving nothing but looks of hatred from anyone they had passed by; the sympathetic look of understanding Hiccup had given him earlier was sickening him, but it was still better.

Something needed to change, and if he ever had the opportunity to confront the dragon boy again then maybe…maybe he could take a different path. It wasn’t necessarily where he wanted to go, but he felt like it was definitely less of a dead-end than where he was.

Until then, Jake would have to continue to stay under Malin’s radar. _Easier said than done_ , the rattler thought, _when the man makes to keep tabs on everything_.

* * *

I whipped my tail up and slammed it into Pitch’s jaw, throwing him across the green and watching with the barest hints of amusement as he plowed through dirt and grass. I paid no attention to the screams of the nightmares around me as they were kept busy, targeted by the others who raced through the skies and across the commons; my focus was solely on the figure picking himself up in front of me and trying to get back into a defensive stance. I gave him no chance to gain his bearings properly however before I fired, black flames searing toward him.

Pitch swept up his arm, the black sand rising up and blocking my attack just before it hit, and he came around the side, throwing spears of anthracite glass my way.

In a flash I was a cloud, the shards contacting nothing but air, and I entered the shadows of the grass below, raising up tendrils of darkness edged in black fire. Pitch ducked the first attack, but wasn’t fast enough to avoid the rope that came up around his feet, tightening with the speed and ferocity of a Viperwyrm and slamming him face-first into the ground. I swept forward and loomed above him in a vaporous rendition of myself, as more ropes whipped up around both of us, lashing out wildly.

“Far cry from the broken man that was your intent,” I growled. “You just drove me further to fury.” Fire erupted from my open mouth, and the shadow tendrils lanced forward.

Laughter echoed around me as the ground became scorched under the heat of the flames and torn up by the dark matter, my grip suddenly empty.

“I am a master of the shadows as well Hawken,” Pitch’s voice echoed as I submerged myself into that impossible-to-describe realm I inhabited in the Shadow Dragon form. The abomination appeared before me in the same “state” that I was, and leapt at me with his sand scythe.

“This is a level playing field, you and me,” he cackled, as I met his blade with one of my own, shadow-formed Mysteel against black magic once again. We carved through the void around us, each blow revealing itself in the physical dimension as explosions of midnight sparks and blackened slices into the ground, stone, and brick as we fought. I had years of experience and draconic speed on my side, but Pitch was lithe, agile, born for this place, drawing from some wealth of experience I could only guess at, and whenever he felt too cornered another of the nightmare sand demons would appear nearby, drawn from battle in the physical world just long enough to get me to divide my focus so that Pitch could slip further away from me and gain his bearings.

“Have you ever wondered what would happen if you died in this state?” Pitch asked tauntingly, his blade suddenly appearing under my guard and catching the tip of my wing, sending a stab of pain through my body. “Connected to the ‘real’ world but separate all the same; if you don’t escape here in time you will remain, trapped in a dying body for years before you fade to nothing.”

Twin swords appeared in his hands and they spun in a blur as they clashed with mine, neither set of weapons truly able to be damaged.

My world became a singular focus, blades flying and fire leaping from my jaws as I sought to weaken Pitch’s resolve. He’d pushed me far enough that I wouldn’t slow, relent, I would stave off exhaustion for hours if need be, to finish him. But he was prone to tiring as well, and eventually slipping up; I was just waiting for the opportunity.

I could vaguely hear Ember yelling orders as the battle with Pitch’s Bioraptors raged across the university grounds, occasional screams of cornered students who were still in the process of escaping the tall residence halls, but despite the fact that the nightmares were no serious match for armored dragons and Vikings, they came in an endless stream as well and gave no breaking point.

I had one special trick up my sleeve for Pitch though (well, more than one but I never showed all my hand at once), and as soon as he stalled for a moment, I took my chance. In the war against Jezebel I had learned one thing, one important detail rather painfully and in person from her: catch someone in this dark matter realm off guard, and you can rip them back into reality.

A tendril of dark matter whipped out from my reach and snagged Pitch’s foot as I caught him off balance, and I acted immediately, dragging him with me as I returned to the real world, pulling him out of the shadows and slamming him into the ground. The tendril released for just a second before it formed into a sharpened blade, and I drove it down into his shoulder, Pitch screaming as he was pinned in place by a holdfast that he couldn’t just dematerialize away from.

“Do you know how to kill a Shadow, Pitch?” I hissed menacingly, Mysteel blade vaporizing from my grip as I stored it away, and instead a blade of black nothing like the one in the figure’s shoulder replaced the space in my left paw. “To kill a Shadow, you need another Shadow.”

The anthracite blade rose, cutting through another Bioraptor that came to aid its master, and I adjusted my grip just slightly in preparation for bringing it down.

A sudden, loud beeping noise caught everyone in the vicinity, Pitch and I included, off guard, and my grip loosened just enough that, when realization dawned on my opponent, he was able to wrench his arm up and off the blade in his shoulder, screaming in pain as he did so, before slamming me in the gut with a block of sand.

I skidded back, winded and losing my grip on the dark matter sword, as Pitch wheezed out, “Malin calls. You’re free to try and find your precious Hiccup and Astrid,” before he vanished.

All around us, the nightmares did the same, each one fading into the shadows and leaving us off balance and surrounded by silence punctuated only by the sound of distant sirens ringing out across campus.

Ember and Orha glided down and landed nearby, followed soon by the others, glancing around as if they expected another sudden sneak attack, which none of us thought outside of possibility.

“Alright, what just happened?” Ember quipped, sword still in hand. “Where’d they all go?”

“Gone,” I replied. “Completely gone. It was a stalling technique; Malin’s dropped Hiccup and Astrid off wherever he was taking them.”

“So the fight’s over already?” Tuffnut asked, his voice half-disappointed. I nodded, demorphing slowly. “For now, and for here. The police and Air National Guard will be here in force and start asking questions soon; Embron, can you stay here? You know procedures, what to answer and what not to.” I looked at him square in the eye when he nodded. “And you can tell them about Berk; this battle is involving both our worlds now.”

Embron nodded a second time, as the gravity of the situation really sank into the rest of the gang; we had never been out in the open like this here. I turned my head, and looked to Amethyst and Feren.

“You two, take everyone else to Berk, get all of them prepared for real war. Ember, Zipeau, let Valka, Stoick, and Sigrid know where I’m heading.”

“You might want this then,” Zipeau interrupted, reaching into his tool strap before handing me a small screen. “I got the notification of the tracker prototype after you deployed it; the signal’s weak, it was not ready for actual use, but you’ll be able to head straight to where he stopped, as long as you follow the same path he did.”

I took the device and turned on the screen, reading the output on the map. Malin had headed almost straight south, but the path grew dimmer as it moved further away from us. I’d have to stay right on it to ensure I didn’t miss a change in direction, which meant I couldn’t travel at full Lightning Blazer speed; this did not sit well, and I growled in frustration. Hiccup and Astrid would be on their own for at least another few hours.

“Best get moving,” Embron spoke up, starting to amble toward the nearby road. “The police are here.”

I turned my head and looked, seeing squad cars surrounding the commons that we stood on. I nodded to the others, who took off, and looked over at Toothless and Thorn, who had also stayed behind.

“I can’t take you Thorn,” I apologized. “This needs as few tagalongs as possible. But we will return with Astrid in one piece, I swear.”

<I’ll hold you to that,> Thorn replied, reluctantly turning and spreading her wings. <When she gets back I’ve got dibs on that snake.>

As she took off, my arms stretched out into Lightning Blazer wings, and I wrapped my tail around Toothless’ torso, dematerializing both as we took off; we’d wasted enough time with this fight, and I wasn’t losing any more.


	22. Awakened Prehistory

_The curtain call came once, and all were wiped away_

_Not a trace left moving on_

_If a new chance were given, would it blossom?_

_Would they come to stand in another dawn?_

The rain had struck like a sledgehammer, quiet one instant and then roaring down in a torrent the next. The clouds darkened the sky almost as if night had fallen early, and the cacophony of the flood made any attempts at words below a scream impossible.

The two Vikings were used to rain, sure, what with it sweeping through Berk at least every other day during summer (and not uncommonly it came with hail to spice things up). This downpour had no hail, much to their relief, but Hiccup and Astrid were both hesitant to label this as just rain either. Individual drops did not exist in this deluge, only a wall of water rushing straight down through the canopy.

They had both been lucky, finding one massive tree with its buttressed roots curling around and creating a space akin to a crooked wooden cave, and the duo had hunkered down inside to wait out the storm. Only when it had begun to let up an hour later did either of them even think of attempting to speak.

“Guess that explains why they call it a rainforest,” Astrid muttered, reaching up and wringing out her hair, soaked through from the beginnings of the downpour along with the rivulets of water that had managed to find their way into the Vikings’ hideaway despite the overhanging roots.

Hiccup chuckled sardonically, before sighing. “Yeah, and there’s no way any scent trail survived that,” he muttered. “As soon as this lets up fully, we need to find open ground, or a beach. And preferably walled off somehow so nothing big can disturb us.”

Astrid turned to look at him, desperately trying to ignore the squelching sound that accompanied her movement. “Well, we haven’t seen anything yet, so it could be whatever we heard was one of those larger forest herbivores Hawken’s told us about.”

“Maybe, but it’s not likely that Malin left us somewhere where that’s the only thing we need to worry about,” Hiccup replied. “And he needs us to be alive when Hawken finds us or else our friends won’t have any reservations about finding exactly where that jet went and leveling the place.” He held up his sword, looking at it worriedly. “If this were a harmless island, he wouldn’t have left us with these to defend ourselves either; there’s definitely something else here.”

Both of them fell silent again, mulling over that unpleasant thought, as the rain outside finally let up completely and the first rays of afternoon sunlight pierced the canopy once more. As it did, Astrid was the first to move, getting up and stretching her newly cramped muscles as she peered out of their makeshift shelter to get a decent glimpse of their surroundings.

“Alright, I’m not seeing anything at the moment out here,” she announced quietly, stepping out and letting Hiccup follow after her. “We head that direction and it’ll take us up the ridge. We might be able to get our bearings at the top, and figure out which direction we should head. Luckily, looks like we won’t have to worry as much about water,” she snarked, gesturing to the dripping leaves around them.

“Yeah, but unfortunately we don’t have any protection against tropical diseases,” Hiccup countered. “Keep your armor on, helmet too if insects get bad. Oh, and…” he gestured weakly as he struggled for a moment to remember the last detail, “…oh, and don’t…don’t eat or drink anything you’re not absolutely certain about.”

Astrid groaned. “I’m not stupid, Hiccup. Let’s get going; sooner we get to the shore the better.” She turned and, pulling out her sword, started up the slight incline as she cleared the denser brush before her. Almost immediately she let out a grimace. “Ugh, is there anything around here that _doesn’t_ have thorns?”

“What, it doesn’t just give you warm fuzzy thoughts about your dragon?”

“Hiccup.”

“What?”

“Make a crack like that again and I’ll throw you into this tangle, boyfriend or not.”

* * *

An hour of trudging up the slope (with several stops along the way when one of them heard a noise in the forest that neither of them recognized) finally resulted in Astrid pushing, sweaty and covered in grime, through one last band of vegetation and arriving at the top of the crest. It wasn’t much, just a slightly more open outcrop dotted with rocks and tall trees, but it split a clearer view of the surrounding landscape.

The ridge they stood on Astrid could see continued in a series of mountains to the north and south, curving off into several lesser ranges that formed valleys and canyons snaking across the land in every direction. To the east, continuing along the path that the pair had more or less been heading, Astrid could see a point where the mountains seemed to end, but she couldn’t quite make out the view through the trees.

Setting the sword in her hand back into its scabbard on her back, Astrid walked over to the nearest impossibly tall tree and grabbed onto one of the vines that coiled around it, hoisting herself up.

“I’m going to get a better vantage point,” she called down to Hiccup. “Keep watch; I can’t see down through the branches too well.”

Hiccup snorted and glanced around, noting with some relief the distinct lack of thick brush nearby on the ridge that would help him spot danger, but a snarky comment made its way out anyway. “Yeah, sure, leave the worst of the two fighters on the ground.”

“You think you’d be better at tree climbing?”

“…Fine, fine, you win this round.”

Astrid smirked at her victory (however hollow; she was the one climbing a mossy, grimy tree several yards above the earth) and hefted herself up, climbing into the lower branches and moving toward an opening in the umbrella of leaves. As her head emerged, a slight breeze washed over her face, making her sigh in relief; in the understory the air was stagnant and hot, barely moving and so seemed more liquid than actual air. With the breeze also came the faint odor of salt water, and Astrid turned her focus again toward the east.

The mountainous structure of the island continued straight to the edge of the land, but to Astrid’s perception there was a flattening of the terrain in a small valley that extended from the ridge to their southeast. Even better, she could swear there were what looked like buildings situated near the river she could see snaking through the canyon in the valley’s center. Looking below her, Astrid called back down to Hiccup.

“Shoreline is probably 20 or more miles away, maybe a bit more, but we can follow the valley along the river to the south of us. And, I think there’s a building complex along the river too, so there might be people here!

“Well, that’s good news,” Hiccup replied, “so long as they’re not abandoned!”

Astrid sighed. “Oh, quite being a pessimist.”

“I’m not,” Hiccup countered. “I’m being realistic. I doubt Malin dropped us somewhere with lots of help nearby.”

“Well, how about being quiet then? Look out, I’m coming down.”

Astrid shimmied back down the tree as quickly as she could, ignoring the fact that Hiccup was looking up at her quite pointedly for more reasons than her quip and dropping down in front of him, turning to head down the opposite side of the mountain. Hiccup barely had a chance to pick himself up off the rock he’d been sitting on to follow.

Down a short ways on the other side, Astrid pushed a cycad out of her face and made to skirt around the side of a boulder that lay in the way of her chosen path, seeing a clear route down on the other side. Slipping slightly on a patch of wet leaves, she put her hands out against the rough surface to steady herself.

The boulder moved. Immediately Astrid froze, Hiccup grinding to a halt as the figure in front of them was aroused by the sudden contact. A thick, bulky tail swung out as two powerful legs and a pair of tiny arms pushed the body up. A large, blocky head bearing intimidating ridged crests over the eyes and a horn on the snout slowly turned upward, yellowish eyes blinking down at them as the toothy jaws worked out cramps from sleep.

“Don’t. Move,” Hiccup barely whispered, Astrid too shocked and suddenly afraid to do anything else. Both of them more than easily recognized a dinosaur now when they saw one, and this one was clearly a carnivore.

The creature leaned down slightly, taking in a scent that it obviously did not recognize; piercing metal, unfamiliar scale-like odors, and mammalian smells thus far foreign. It saw nothing though, the two Vikings in front of it unmoving and invisible to its motion-based vision. After a horrifying several moments that seemed to stretch for hours, it finally turned and slowly began trundling down the ridge into the brush.

Slowly, Astrid turned her head and whispered, “What. On. Earth. Was that?”

“Ceratosaurus,” Hiccup whispered back, still shell-shocked. “Oh, Lord help us, Malin dropped us into Jurassic Park.” He glanced around them frantically, half-expecting another dinosaur to come barging in through the trees toward them. “We need to move. Now.”

Both of them headed straight south, trying to bypass the path that the predator had taken down the hill, before cutting east down the hillside.

“That’s why Malin let us have our weapons,” Astrid grunted, shoving through a thick portion of brush. “We can defend ourselves against a dinosaur, but not head-on without getting bit in half first.” She turned slightly to look back at Hiccup. “Even with my gift I am not faster than a raptor, and I pray that we don’t run into –AAAHHH!!”

The tangle of vegetation suddenly gave way, sending both Hiccup and Astrid tumbling down a short incline, both of them landing hard on their backs in an open patch of dirt.

“Owwww,” Hiccup groaned, lifting his head…

…and spotting the Ceratosaurus not 30 feet away, its small eyes blinking owlishly right at both of them.

“Oh, no,” he whispered. “Astrid, run. Now!”

Astrid lifted her head and followed his gaze, before both of them scrambled to their feet and took off. The Ceratosaurus let loose a bellowing roar and gave chase, the ground rumbling under every step the 25 foot reptile took. The duo scrambled through the trees beyond the clearing, trying to get far enough ahead to duck out of sight and failing thanks to the thick underbrush. The problem was worsened by the fact that, in order to keep ahead of the dinosaur and not get tripped by vines, Hiccup and Astrid were forced to take either the most open paths or Astrid frantically cleared away the tangled plants, keeping them both in the open and allowing their pursuer to keep following them with ease.

Hiccup’s mind was racing, desperately trying to find another solution, some path that they could take that the Ceratosaurus couldn’t. A bolt from the blue came as the predator let out another disturbingly proximal roar.

“Look for a steep incline!” Hiccup yelled. “He’s top heavy, won’t be able to head downhill easily!”

Astrid didn’t reply, too busy trying to find paths they wouldn’t get stuck in. She would have been able to outrun the dinosaur, but there was no way she was leaving Hiccup behind either. Then, she was handed a lifeline.

“There!” she yelled, turning and leaping over a bush as she swiped her sword through it, clearing the path for Hiccup as she angled toward a notable drop in the terrain. The vegetation opened up into shorter grasses and sparse bushes, and she and Hiccup skidded down the slope, barely staying upright themselves as they half-tumbled toward the bottom.

The Ceratosaurus, however, did not follow. It slowed to a halt at the top of the incline, surveying the danger presented to its sight. After a moment of indecision, clearly wanting to catch its prey, it appeared to finally choose safety over a meal, and gave out a disgruntled growl as it turned to head back up the hill above them.

Astrid and Hiccup both let out breaths of great relief that they hadn’t realized they were holding, and without thinking, turned and hugged each other, deepening the embrace with a kiss.

“That was way too close,” Hiccup gasped as they parted. “We need to get to that compound, now.”

* * *

The abandoned military base was barely visible in the heavy evening light, shrouded in fog as the modified quinjet landed, descending into the subterranean hangar. Moments later the bay doors closed down, sending the region into complete silence once again. Below the surface, the jet powered down and the cargo door opened, Rattlesnake Jake spilling out in his haste to find a change of scenery besides the inside of the craft and nearly bowling over a young man who was heading for the plane.

“Try not to flatten the employees, would you Jake?” Malin groused impatiently, stepping out more casually and turning toward the man in question, ignoring the glare that the reptile shot in his direction. “Your name please, soldier.”

“Private Raphael Rayed, sir,” the soldier replied. He was dressed in grayscale camouflage military fatigues, black hair cut short under his cap. “I was sent to convey our progress to you. I…I was not expecting to be run over by a giant serpent in the process, however.” His eyes flicked warily toward the snake.

“Never mind Jake,” Malin dismissed. “What news do you have for me? Has the Algeria negotiation gone through, or will we have to fall back to Plan B?”

“Negotiations appear positive; forces are being mobilized as we speak in fact,” Rayed replied. “The fleet has been kept under radar, and a direct line to the east coast has been arranged. There’s no possible way defenses could be mobilized against it in time.”

“Perfect,” Malin said, smiling darkly. “Preliminary stations are being set up around D.C. and we’ll make our move two mornings from now; we can’t risk waiting longer than that. Jake and I will be heading for the capital, and I doubt things will go smoothly there as they never do, so the leading strike must be in position to deploy immediately afterward.”

“I will pass on the order then,” Rayed assured, turning and marching off toward an unmarked doorway at the end of the hangar.

Malin reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone, reading the text that flashed across the screen before turning the device off. Pitch was on his way, with news of a new fighting force Hawken had behind them that they had not been aware off. It was a complication that made Malin more certain that his attempt on D.C. would not go unmolested, and these new factors also left a huge amount of flexible room for Hawken to assign duties of preparation to others while he and the other top warriors stayed free to fight. It was a dangerous development, and not a position Malin enjoyed being shoved into, knowing advantages were being lost.

A metallic rustling drew the man’s attention across the hangar, where the Western Diamondback was coiled, checking over the barrels of his gun. Jake, at least, appeared to always be on the job as he needed to be, even if he had a different manner of completing his task than Malin personally preferred. On the other hand, that unsettling phase he’d gone through on the jet had also seemed to pass, which was good as the snake would be necessary if the attempt was to be successful, especially if Hawken found the two castaway Vikings sooner than expected.

The last thought caused Malin to snort. Hiccup and Astrid were stuck on one of the most dangerous places in the world now; there was no guarantee both of them would even survive in one piece either.

* * *

“Is there anything out here that doesn’t try to eat, sting, or spear you through?” Hiccup groused, shaking his foot as a smilax vine wrapped around it; luckily, nothing could get through Myscale, but it didn’t make the grabby thorns any more pleasant. “Bad enough that we’re stuck on an island full of dinosaurs, but couldn’t the natives that already live here cut us a bit of slack?”

“You remember what Hawken said, right?” Astrid replied snarkily, taking her sword and cleaving through a spine-covered vine herself. “Nature’s color was never green. It’s red, blood red.”

They’d continued their harrowing trek down into the valley, still a fair distance from the complex Astrid had spied but no further assailed by predators (though there was one harrowing moment as they crossed a fairly modern bridge, and something was clearly following them in the bushes behind them). In several instances however, they had run across several non-lethal species of the once-extinct reptiles. Hiccup had catalogued thus far Brachiosaurus, an Ankylosaurus, and a herd of iguanodonts. Other than the bridge, though, they had found no further signs of former habitation on the island, not even decently overgrown roads.

“Think there is anyone else in this place still?” Hiccup queried as they continued, entering a forested zone with little in the way of undergrowth but much in the manner of towering trees, shading the pair and offering some shelter from the light rain that had begun falling again (Astrid bit back her complaints about it, as they hadn’t even dried off from the last downpour).

Astrid slowed and looked around, taking in a deep breath. “If there is, or was, anyone here before, I doubt they would last long,” she answered gravely. “We’re accustomed to large reptiles with teeth. Anyone else on this planet isn’t. I…” she trailed off when a noise echoed through the forest, drawing their eyes and ears.

“You’ve got to be kidding; what are the odds?” Hiccup quipped, as the sound of someone shouting ricocheted off the trees once more. “Come on, sounds like it could be trouble.”

“Uh, in case you didn’t notice trouble around here usually involves running from something that wants to eat you,” Astrid argued. “Why do we want to head in that direction?”

“Something that wants to eat me was an issue I lived with half my life, and still every now and then,” Hiccup joked. “And if it’s such a thing, we can defend ourselves, and I doubt that they can. Besides, don’t tell me after all this time you think it’s _right_ to leave someone who you could assist?”

Even if Astrid had a comeback to that, it didn’t matter, as Hiccup had already trudged off, drawing Inferno from his leg and hovering his finger over the ignition. She hurried after him, the voices leading them to the edge of an overgrown ditch with a swampy stream running through the center. As the two stepped around one last tree…

“AAAAHHHH!!”

“AAAAHHHH!!”

Two screams echoed at the same time, one from Hiccup who nearly ran into the newcomer and the other from the forty-something man who backpedaled and nearly fell back into the ditch he had clearly just finished being dragged out of.

“What the…I thought there was no one else here!” the man exclaimed, being picked up by a woman of similar age and a teen who matched both their grimy states.

“W-we were of the same thought,” Hiccup stammered. “Are you alright? We heard shouting.”

“Ah, uh, yeah, fell in. But that option’s better than what would have happened if we’d stopped running.”

The two groups took a moment to stop and observe each other; the man Hiccup had run into was shorter than the Viking, probably around five-foot-eight, thin and bearing a short mop of dark brown hair. The boy behind him had longer hair of the same color, similar in length to Hiccup’s, and the woman was about halfway between the two in height, clearly less adapted to outdoor life being dressed in a now ratty looking mauve blouse and bearing shoulder length light blonde hair. A fourth party stepped up a few moments later, watching warily for danger under his walkabout hat; he was just a little taller than Hiccup, with very short, light brown hair.

The new castaways were more taken aback by the Vikings’ appearances, the odd-colored slick suits they were adorned in especially, but the shock was quickly shaken off. The first man extended his hand in greeting.

“Probably not the greatest of circumstances for introductions, but better than yelling ‘Hey you’,” he began, “and we seem to have lost the dino. Name’s Ryan, this is my son Eric, wife Linda, and my brother Allen. Are…are you guys aware of what’s on this island yet?”

Hiccup nodded as he took the man’s hand. “Afraid so, and we’re, uh, probably the reason for it.” He gestured to Astrid. “This is Astrid, my name’s Hiccup. We were dumped here by a guy who, I think, has some sort of means for bringing this stuff to life, as sci-fi ridiculous as that sounds. I’m so sorry you all got caught up in this.”

Ryan looked at him oddly. “Your fault? Wait, how does someone bring…hold on, did you say Hiccup?”

“And Astrid, like in that movie?” Eric echoed behind his father.

Hiccup sighed. “Yes, one and the same. We can explain as we move though; we don’t want to stay here. There’s a compound we spied to the southeast of here, and we might be able to find help, or at least shelter, there.” He turned and began to trek back into the forest, away from the direction that both parties had more or less come from. “It would be smart to stay as one group here, more people to watch for danger, and if you want answers you’ll have to keep up. What were you on the island for?”

“Exploration, of sorts,” Allen answered, falling in step first behind Hiccup and Astrid. “We had a permit from the Costa Rican authorities to explore the terrain, as while there is a research base on this island that I am guessing is the same as the compound you saw, there isn’t much more beyond that. The government is interested in oil, natural gas, mineral rights and that sort; we were here for a biodiversity survey and semi-vacation.

“We were heading down a trail leading back to our car, but when we got there it had been crushed.” He gestured around them. “Now it’s obvious what destroyed it. We’re stranded here.”

“Well, hopefully when our friend gets here he can transport you off the island with us then,” Astrid spoke up. “Though I’m afraid even when we get out of here the world’s going to be a lot less safe than it was. Not that it was really safe to begin with.”

“Is this related to the fact that you guys are from a movie?” Eric asked.

“Eh, sort of, yes and no,” Astrid answered. “Reality is a lot stranger than that fictional tale however, and the man who dumped us here, and basically caused you to be stranded with us, doesn’t have any intention of being kind, not until us and our friends are dead and he’s heading the running of the world.”

“Sounds like a ridiculous conspiracy theory.”

“When you’re friends with the guy who turns into a dragon and you live life in two separate worlds, conspiracies aren’t that out there.”

“Wait a minute,” Linda cut in, “You mean that’s where Hawken got his power? That’s the answer, that How to Train Your Dragon actually happened somewhere? Everyone’s been waiting to find this out!”

“A lot more complicated than that, but in short, yes,” Hiccup replied. “But please, let’s try and keep our voices low; I don’t know what kind of dinosaur you guys ran into”-

“Dilophosaurus,” Allen interjected.

“-okay, well, we ran into a Ceratosaurus on the hill, and if Malin brought all of Isla Sorna to life then there may be worse out there. We don’t need to attract more attention.”

“Got it,” Ryan agreed. “Just…one more question: what on earth are those outfits made of? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Myscale,” Astrid said. “It’s a combination of dragon scales and a special metal alloy, our own creation. It should be impervious to even dinosaur teeth and claws, but I personally don’t want to find out myself.”

“Agreed.”

* * *

Dusk fell as yet another storm built up in the distance, and the sun fell behind the mountains when the new, larger posse finally crested the hill that separated them from the compound. Lights were on around the buildings, machines in good condition and suggesting very recent habitation. Hiccup sighed in relief and started down the hill, Astrid and new friends in tow.

“Hopefully someone’s still up at this hour,” he muttered, stepping out of the thick ferns and onto the gravel and dirt surrounding the nearest building. “We should get inside first, then see if there’s help, maybe a place to stay since it’s already so late.”

He approached the door on the side of the compound, grabbing the doorknob and turning it. The lock clicked, and the door swung open, revealing a dimly lit hallway snaking deeper into the structure.

“Okay, door’s open,” Hiccup whispered, sticking his head in. “Anyone home?” he called, listening for an answer. When none came, he turned to the others and shrugged. “Let’s head inside; better in there than exposed out here.” Stepping aside, he gestured for the others to move in, bringing up the rear behind them with Astrid and quietly shutting the door. All of them missed the shadow that darted along the edge of the forest to the west.

The corridor led straight into the heart of the building, turning several corners and passing doors to rooms with shelves full of research equipment, file boxes, and occasionally computers. In one, Linda spotted a phone and immediately entered, picking up the landline receiver and placing it to her ear. Moments later she deflated, a tear welling up in the corner of her eye.

“The line is dead,” she said quietly, reaching over and touching the mouse to the computer. “And so is the internet connection.”

“So we really are stranded here,” Eric muttered morosely.

“Come on,” Astrid toned. “No good staying here, we need to at least find a more secure room.” She turned, spinning her sword in her hand and walking down the hallway to turn the corner…before gasping and falling back against the wall, going pale and almost green.

“Oh my God,” she gasped, voice wavering as her hand clapped over her mouth. Allen and Ryan rushed forward, looking around the same corner and slowing as they found the source of Astrid’s horror.

“We’re…we’re not going to find anyone alive in here,” Allen said in an almost whisper.

“What? Why?” Hiccup blurted, joining them. His mouth snapped shut at the sight. “Oh.”

Along the wall of the corridor was a smear of blood, punctuated by scarlet handprints and ending in a shard of bone embedded in half a hand. Further down the hallway were more signs of a gruesome death that had occurred, a shredded boot lying in another pool of sickening red with slivers of what had fit inside it once hanging out the open top.

Everyone was taken aback by this, nightmares already flashing through their minds, but Hiccup’s eyes widened further at a new thought. There were only two carnivores, maybe three, that were likely to be on the island that could get inside these halls, two of them big enough to cause this.

“We need to find a secure room,” he urged. “Now.”

“What could have done this, Hiccup?” Astrid asked softly.

“Raptors, possibly a Dilophosaurus,” he replied. “Both very intelligent, both fast, and”-

That’s when they heard it: a crash echoed from somewhere outside the building, followed by a predatory, guttural hiss. The group froze, before Hiccup turned his eyes away from the carnage in front of them and down a side hallway just ahead.

“In there, go!” he ordered, pointing toward another door. The room’s wall was lined with windows, but ones with thicker Plexiglas, and inside the lit space were very large, bulky shelves that shielded the back from view. They rushed toward the door, side-stepping the gore on the walls, and Allen grabbed the knob and pushed the door open. Everyone piled inside after him before Astrid brought up the back and shut the door, locking the bolt inside across the doorframe.

Then, they all hunkered down into the back of the room, behind the shelves where only a sliver of the windows were visible. Hiccup was the last to get down, having found the light controls and flipping the switch, sending them all into shadow. Then they waited, silent.

Sounds like nails across metal, only louder, sounded from somewhere in the other end of the compound, and then a similar sound ripped out from near the door they had entered the compound through, muffled screeches and growls filtering in to the shivering people inside.

“It sounds like the Dilo-Dilophosaurus that chased us,” Eric whispered, eyes glued to what little he could see of the windows. Slowly, the sounds died away, seeming to grow more distant, but none of the group were willing to risk even moving just yet.

Ten minutes passed before the silence had lasted long enough for Hiccup to get up cautiously. As he did, he took note of the objects on the shelves around them: water bottles, bandages, antibiotics.

“They’re gone, whatever they were,” he whispered, “for now at least. I think we should stay in here though; there are medical supplies in this room.” He reached up and pulled down a thick package, tearing it open and pulling out a hypothermia blanket. “It would be wisest to stock up too before we go anywhere else, and perhaps stay here for the night.”

“But what if they come back during the night, and get in here?” Linda blurted, eyes flicking to the windows again. “We’re cornered in here.”

“Most dinosaurs small enough to fit through those hallways won’t be able to get through that door, or the windows for that matter,” Astrid reassured her. “And if they do, we should be able to hold them off long enough to get out.” She pulled out her sword to prove her point, spinning it and bringing the tip down through the side of the box on the far shelf, spilling out energy bars.

Hiccup nodded and grabbed more of the blankets off the shelf above him, throwing one to each of the others and pulling out the water bottles on the shelf below them. “Once we fall asleep there’s little to attract anything here too”-

A crack of thunder rattled the building, interrupting Hiccup, who waited for the echoes to die away before trying to speak again. “-and now there’s another storm on top of that. Nothing will hunt while it’s coming down, so we’re relatively safe. Try to get some shuteye; we need our rest for tomorrow.”

The group hunkered down as the rain began hammering against the roof and, fortunately for them, drowning out any other noises that may have filtered into the complex to disturb them. As the night wore on, they each fell into a fitful sleep one after the other, Hiccup the last to drift off as he mulled over the coming obstacles they would be facing.

* * *

Darkness had already fallen when Toothless and I came upon the island, decelerating and rematerializing as Night Fury and Lightning Blazer. A few moments later, there were two Night Furies gliding through the dense, humid air toward an elongate, plainly artificial clearing that cut through the valley floor on the rainforest-cloaked island.

<I was not aware the earth could have such humid air on it,> Toothless remarked as we touched down. <If I didn’t know better I would have almost said we were swimming instead of flying.>

<Call me weird, but it just makes me feel comfortable,> I muttered as I looked around. The transceiver Zipeau had given me beeped, indicating a prolonged stop at this location, and I turned it off and stored it away entirely; it would not be of any future use for us there (or later; the battery would not have lasted more than those few hours of travel in the prototype).

I stooped down to the ground, inhaling as I flicked out my tongue, taking in two different senses in hopes that one of them would pick up some trace of the two Vikings we were here for. After a few seconds I managed to detect a slight chemosensory trace of Hiccup in the dirt. It was incredibly faint, however.

<They’re here, somewhere,> I said, garnering Toothless’ attention from where the other Night Fury was searching a short distance away. <But it’s not strong enough to track by, only enough for me to detect because they were here longer than a couple minutes. There’s been a storm since they were here so we’re going to be scent-blind.>

<Think they stayed anywhere nearby?>

<Not likely, but there’s only one way to know for sure.> I turned, facing the forest, and sucked in a deep breath.

“HICCUP!! ASTRID!!” I yelled out, rattling the nearby trees. Birds all around us squawked and took to the air, and a distant crack of thunder seemed to echo me, but neither of our quarries answered back; even my and Toothless’ hearing picked up nothing.

But, something else did seem to answer. Off to the southwest I picked up the faint sound of something big moving through the trees, and I glanced at Toothless, who had clearly heard it too, ears perked straight up as he stared in that direction.

<That’s not human,> he growled, <and it’s not a machine either.> His head swiveled to face me, expression growing serious. <Malin put something else here with them; we should find out what it is so we know what we’re up against.>

<Agreed.>

We spread our wings and took off again, weaving through the canopy of the trees as we zeroed in on the disturbance, the two of us appearing as a pair of black blurs among the darkened branches. Once we were close, we landed on the upper branches of a massive tree and slowly crept down the trunk, focusing on a grove of trees up ahead. The branches we watched shivered slightly, and then went still.

<This doesn’t bode well,> I growled. <It’s alive, whatever it is.> I crept forward a little further, before the scent hit me. Seconds later, Toothless froze as well.

<It’s a reptile,> he whispered. <Whatever it is, it’s a reptile!>

My eyes narrowed. <And that means it most likely knows we’re->

The trees exploded as it charged out, six-foot jaws open as a savage roar split the air. I snapped into battle stance and began charging up a fireball, aiming point-blank…and froze again when my senses registered what it was that was attacking us.

The Spinosaurus did not stop on the other hand. When I didn’t move, it saw an easy meal and aimed for me, six-inch teeth shearing through the air.

Toothless was still awake however. <HAWKEN!!> he screeched, leaping forward and slamming into my side, throwing both of us out of the way and to the ground as the dinosaur’s jaws snapped closed, snapping a rib in my side and managing to make me regain my own head through the pain. I groaned and rolled to my feet, healing the wound before turning to face the super-predator again.

The Spinosaurus roared and turned after us, not missing a beat. I wasn’t so easy to pin this time however, darting out of the way and firing. The plasma exploded across its neck in a brilliant flare of indigo and orange.

<Sorry, wasn’t expecting Jurassic Park to leap into my face,> I apologized to Toothless as he fired as well, dazing out the senses of the Spinosaurus for a moment.

<Really?> he quipped, pacing as he watched the dinosaur stagger from the dual blows. <You have a dinosaur as a sort of half-brother and live with dragons, and this still shocks you?>

<It’s a 60 foot predator that should have died out millions of years ago,> I retorted. <Give me a break; it’s been a long day!>

Changing tactics, I morphed, lengthening until I was nearly 30 feet longer than the Spinosaurus, and bore a tail tipped in blades. My wings flared, fully Shadowracer, and I gave a shriek as I whipped my tail forward. One cut across the Spinosaurus’ cheek, and it decided finally that this fight wasn’t worth it. With a moan, it turned and stalked off, leaving Toothless and I breathing hard and wide awake with adrenaline. When that started bleeding out of our systems, a terrible thought hit me, and I scented the air again.

<No…no trace of human scent,> I breathed with relief (though my nose wrinkled at the other odors I picked up from the retreating reptile), shrinking back down to Night Fury. <The Spinosaurus never encountered them; they’re still out there.>

Toothless clearly relaxed at the news, before a crack of thunder sounded from directly above us, and the sky seemed to open up.

<Aaaannd we’re never going to find them in this either,> he growled, ears drooping in the pounding rain. I nodded in reluctant agreement and flared a wing over him, walking roughly in the opposite direction of the dinosaur.

<Come on!> I urged. <We’ll find shelter, and wait out the storm there. No point trying to travel in this!>

After several minutes we managed to locate something moderately suitable: a rock overhang in the side of a hill. As Toothless huddled against the back side, I took up a position near the front of the “cave,” spreading Timberjack wings to block out the outside world and the deluge that came with it. Then, we waited.

Hours ticked on by without any sign of slowing from the rain, and eventually the silence got to both of us. Toothless broke it first.

<I’ve…I’ve been thinking about these challenges Malin has been throwing at us,> he mused. <First we encountered Rattlesnake Jake, an entirely fictional character or at least what should be. Pitch was the same, even if it seems his powers are a bit modified. But then, so was Jake. Now, we’re on an island that has been manipulated so as to appear like that Isla Sorna place in the Jurassic Park movies you and Hiccup like.>

<And the jet Malin took off in looked like a modified S.H.I.E.L.D. quinjet,> I replied, beginning to catch on to what he was implying. <Malin’s not finding allies in other stories that happened to also be part of reality, he’s…>

<He’s the one bringing them to life,> Toothless confirmed.


	23. The Hunted

_The labels flip, and the world laughs_

_You are no longer master_

_Small, weak, and fearful_

_Running through a terror’s teeth_

_Let the tremors roll_

_There’s no avoiding it_

_When the hunter becomes the hunted_

Astrid stirred, slowly regaining consciousness as she became aware of her surroundings. She was lying on a blanket, nestled up against something else warm, comforting, and breathing…

She smirked as she turned her head, eyes opening to find Hiccup lying next to her, still fast asleep and looking somehow both at peace and ready to fight at a moment’s notice. Knowing how awkward he got with “public” affection displays, even despite having been basically paired off with her to everyone’s eyes already, Astrid decided she had to take this opportunity. Leaning forward despite the uncomfortable angle, she moved in and kissed him on the lips. Hard.

Hiccup’s eyes snapped open at the contact, and he looked down to find the sudden source of sensation. For a moment he relaxed, eyes closing halfway and returning the affection full force, before he noticed where they were and who they were currently with.

“Oh! Oh, uh, m-morning Astrid!” he stuttered. “I…uh…”

“Stop talking and just take a moment for once Hiccup,” Astrid teased, voice serious despite her face giving away her mischievous demeanor.

“Oookay, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Hiccup blustered, turning red when Astrid only proceeded to cackle at his reaction, and thus awakening the others.

“What…what time is it?” Linda yawned, groaning and pushing herself into a sitting position.

“Quarter past nine,” Allen answered, checking his watch as he stirred. “We should prepare to get moving; the longer we stay here means the more likely something finds us.”

Hiccup nodded as he stood up, checking his pockets and ensuring everything was reattached in the right places; after all, it wasn’t wise to sleep with swords strapped to one’s back, even when they were sheathed. “We should keep moving toward the coast,” he said. “Hawken will be able to see us more easily there and a lot of dinosaurs can’t swim all that well.” He looked at Allen and Ryan. “You said you were on this island for exploration; what do you know of that might help us get to the coast more easily? Like any paths or shallow valleys?”

Allen gestured roughly to the east. “We continue down this valley and we’ll find a canyon. The river that runs through it heads more or less straight to the ocean.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Astrid agreed, grabbing a small pack and slipping it over her shoulders, filling it with snack bars and the plastic water bottles.

“Oh, and there should be a docking area for cargo boats somewhere along it,” Ryan added. “It was to supply the base here.”

“Well, then let’s hope there’s a boat for us to travel on,” Hiccup said. “If we stay off the land, we should be safer.”

A few minutes later, the door to the room slowly creaked open, and Astrid stuck her head out, peering down the hallways. She grimaced at the sight of the blood on the wall that they had encountered the night before, now dried and dark and just that much more disturbing. After a moment of silence however, she saw and heard nothing else; even the rain outside had moved on.

“Alright,” she whispered, “keep quiet and follow me; try not to freak out at anything we find.”

They crept out and down the hallway, gingerly stepping past the severed limbs and continuing along the corridor until they reached a sort of atrium, with windows looking out both sides of the compound to the forest. The skies were, fortunately, clear, giving them a crystal view. Astrid continued tiptoeing forward, sword drawn, as she carefully pushed open the doors into the next room.

It was more of a hangar than a proper room, with earthmovers, cranes, and other heavy equipment stored within. The door creaked slightly, and everyone froze as they waited, listening for any reaction to the noise. When nothing moved or roared, they all gave quiet sighs of relief and tentatively stepped in, watching their surroundings.

“Head to the southeast corner,” Hiccup said quietly. “Look for a door or something that might lead outside. We’ll break for the forest there and head east through the trees.”

The others nodded and headed to skirt around a large bulldozer. Eric took point, walking up along the side and striding around the corner.

TSSSEEEEEERR!! “AAAHHH!!”

It had been hiding along the wall, baiting the group to come closer before going on the attack. The raptor slipped momentarily on the slick concrete floor before lunging again after the teen. Eric scrambled backward and out of the way of the strike before the dinosaur slid to a stop and faced the whole group, hissing and calculating the odds.

Hiccup, ever the observer, took a moment in the standoff to study this new threat: the dinosaur stood at easily 15 feet long and as tall as he was, mainly gray but striped in browns and blues with a small set of quill-like feathers running down the top of its neck. Large, very intelligent eyes gazed predatorily from the long, snarling face as rows of serrated teeth were exposed, and a thick tail swept slowly and flexibly back and forth in anticipation.

The raptor shrieked again and leapt toward Eric once more, targeting him as the smallest and therefore easiest to take down. Astrid intervened, yelling as she spun her sword and catching the raptor across its hand, leaving a bright red gash across one of its claws. It screamed and leapt backward, facing off with the Valkyrie that had attacked it.

“Go!” Astrid yelled, swinging again and driving the reptile back. Hiccup pointed the others toward a door before drawing his own sword and joining Astrid in forcing the raptor further back, toward an electrical control system in the corner surrounded by a tall wire safety fence.

“Go to the left Hiccup!” Astrid ordered, and Hiccup shifted accordingly, driving the raptor toward the open gate with a swipe of his blade. The raptor had been analyzing them as they had been attacking it however, picking up patterns, and it took its chance and lunged when Hiccup’s blade came down, mouth open and all 80 razor teeth bared. Hiccup flinched and raised his arm in an instinctive response, and the raptor bit down hard as the two tumbled to the floor.

A sudden, intense pressure made itself known on Hiccup’s wrist, but no burning pain accompanied it, and Hiccup grinned. The raptor, however, was baffled as to why its teeth weren’t shredding the Myscale suit that its prey wore, and in its moment of hesitation Hiccup leaned back and kicked hard into the dinosaur’s ribs, sending it sprawling through the gate. Astrid leapt forward and slammed it shut, locking the bolt before jumping back and helping Hiccup up.

The raptor scrambled to its feet and leapt at the mesh, finding the metal impossible to tear through as well. “He’s trapped, let’s get out of here!” Astrid yelled, grabbing Hiccup’s arm again and bolting for the door the others were waiting by.

Then, the raptor did something that made Hiccup freeze in his steps: tilting its head upward, it spotted the open top of the makeshift protective cage, and began climbing, releasing as it did so a high-pitched chattering call that echoed around the room.

It was the call that made Hiccup glance back in shock; instead of chirps and chattering the Viking heard very clearly: <Here! Here! Help, prey! Help, come!>

“It’s Dragonese,” he blurted, staring wide-eyed. “It’s speaking Dragonese!”

Astrid ran up behind him and grabbed hold of his arm a third time, finally just dragging Hiccup toward the door. “What are you just standing there for?!” she snapped. “Move!”

Hiccup finally jerked back to his senses and ran with her, out the door and toward the forest where the others were heading. “Run!” he yelled. “We need to get as far away from here as possible!”

They all sped up, dashing into the forest and down what could only just barely be called a path, Astrid taking up the lead soon as Hiccup and Allen brought up the rear. Behind them Hiccup soon heard another echoing call near the compound: <Here! Prey, hunt, here!> Moments later, a second call echoed it, further away and in the trees but closing distance fast.

The path soon opened up into a wide field, a herd of Iguanodon grazing in the middle. As soon as the group spilled out of the trees, the dinosaurs went on alert, calling out and breaking into a run. Hiccup glanced behind them to see the first of the raptors appearing from the forest, stalling for a moment at the meadow’s edge as it waited for its pack.

“Hide in the herd!” Allen yelled next to him, and they veered to the side, dashing in between the stampeding Iguanodon and catching glimpses of the others doing the same ahead of them.

The deafening sounds of the herbivores soon began to intermix with piercing screeches and growls as the raptors joined the chaos, dashing between the larger dinosaurs as they zeroed in on the smaller targets that had escaped from the scout.

Hiccup looked ahead just as Eric tripped in front of him, the boy stumbling and falling flat as he tried to keep moving. “Eric!” Allen yelled, him and Hiccup turning toward the boy and hoisting him to his feet before the three continued racing forward, now far too close to the raptors for comfort. Trees loomed ahead and they headed in again, cutting a hard right and pulling off into a space surrounded by thick brush.

“Where are the others?” Allen asked breathlessly as they slowed slightly.

“Don’t know,” Hiccup replied, equally out of breath. “Should be fine with Astrid though. She’s -shhh!”

The sound of growls and chitters returned, trekking through the thick jungle, but due to the obscuring foliage around the trio’s little clearing, none of the three could tell where it came from. Hiccup pulled the other two with him up against the base of a vine-covered but otherwise woefully bare tree, his left hand on Inferno as they crouched down and listened, waiting for a clue as to where their pursuers were.

* * *

“Climb! Climb, now!” Astrid yelled again, pushing Linda toward a steep tree laced with vines. They had done the same as Hiccup and company, separating from the stampede when the forest closed in again and taken to the trees. Behind her, she heard the screech of a raptor as it headed in her direction, and as soon as Linda was high enough Astrid grabbed onto a low branch and swung herself up, landing on top and leaping up to the next one. The raptor shrieked and leapt up at her desperately, but Astrid was already too high up in the tree for it to reach her. Carefully, she climbed along the branch and helped Linda up the rest of the way, the woman having been hidden by the leaves of the tree before but not quite out of reach of the predator below.

“Thanks,” Linda gasped, breathing heavily and looking down at the carnivorous reptile. “Where did you learn to move like that?”

“I’ve lived my entire life around dragons, and I have a gift,” Astrid breathed, looking around. “Where’s Ryan?”

“Over here,” came the quiet reply, drawing the attention of the two women to a nearby tree whose branches crossed with theirs. Ryan was holding tight to a pair of branches high in the tree as he straddled another. “Where’s Allen and Eric?” he called back.

“We got separated,” Astrid replied. “But the raptors seem to have followed us.”

“We don’t know how many there are though,” Linda quipped back worriedly, moving along the branch that led toward Ryan. “Maybe this one followed us, but what if there were others –AAAAHHH!!!”

Linda’s foot suddenly hit a slick patch of moss and she slipped, falling off her branch and hitting the one just below her, hard. Her head and feet dangled down within reach of the raptor as the woman fought to regain her senses, but the first dinosaur didn’t move; instead, another two burst out of the bushes and leapt toward the helpless human.

Astrid leapt down to the branch below and hoisted Linda up with a groan, the two dinosaurs missing their mark by mere inches, before taking her sword and cutting down a nearby vine, stripping it of leaves in a hurry and lashing it out at the raptors.

The tip made contact with one, the dinosaur screeching in surprise more than pain and jumping away, snarling up at her. Astrid grimaced back in turn, brandishing her makeshift whip in warning.

Then, a chittering call filtered through the forest, and the three predators below snapped to alert mode, looking at each other and grumbling lowly before turning and dashing back into the jungle.

* * *

There was a slight gap between the two main trunks of the tree that they were pressed against, that Hiccup was utilizing as a viewpoint out beyond their hidden ring of brush. A single raptor was visible, the predator scenting the ground carefully and glancing around, alert to any movement or sound made nearby. Suddenly it stood straight up, making Hiccup wince and slide out of sight, and a chilling call emanated from the raptor.

<Here! Prey here, trapped!>

Immediately Hiccup reached down, grabbing a canister off of his leg and, quietly as he could, slipped it into Inferno’s base. “They know were here,” he muttered lowly. “Stay right behind me.”

He carefully lifted his head to take another cautious look around the tree. Instead, the sight of the raptor’s snout inches from his own as it snarled over the crook in the trunk made Hiccup yelp in surprise and stumble backward, knocking the other two back into the middle of their clearing.

The raptor leapt up over the split in the tree, landing with claws raised and at the ready, and from around the sides of the clearing seven others stepped in, surrounding the three humans. One in particular (Hiccup assumed that it had to be female, as it lacked the quill feathers and flashier colors of some of the others, and he assumed it was the alpha when the others began mirroring its movements) stepped around to face Hiccup, analyzing him and the tube held in his hand.

<Strange prey,> she growled, keeping one eye on the trio as she addressed her pack mates. <Is food? Danger?>

<Danger claws, sharp,> another chattered back. Hiccup almost immediately recognized it as the blue-mottled male that had first faced them; the gash on his forelimb digits had already begun to scab and heal. He glanced at Hiccup, lips curling. <Fast, knows-defends.>

The matriarch turned her full attention back on Hiccup and the two people he stood by, continuing her scrutinization of him.

“What are they doing?” Eric whispered.

“Figuring out if we’re worth it,” Hiccup replied tersely. “They know at least some of us are armed, but if they decide that”-

<Still prey,> the matriarch suddenly growled. <Take chance.>

Hiccup’s eyes widened as the raptors shifted together, closing in. “Get down!” he yelled. Eric and Allen dropped to the ground as the pack leapt inward, and Hiccup pressed a button on Inferno, the blade extending out and flaring up with blazing light.

The sudden appearance of the flames sent the raptors skidding to a halt as Hiccup swung the blade in an arc. All animals have an instinctive knowledge of fire, though not necessarily fear, and the dinosaurs immediately recognized the danger of it when wielded by their target.

<Danger! Back!> the alpha screeched, the pack obeying and skittering backward away from the flames. Hiccup took the moment to fold the blade up again, and instead released the Zippleback gas in the canister on the other end, spinning so that the cloud surrounded the trio before pressing the flint and releasing the needed spark.

Flames rolled outward with a loud roar, encircling them in a ring of blazing orange that separated them from the rapidly retreating ring of raptors. As the searing heat and noise died back, leaving behind an acrid cloud of smoke, Hiccup stood up straight and glared at the alpha in challenge, pulling out another sword and daring her to make the attack decision a second time.

A tense atmosphere pervaded the scene thicker than before as the predators assessed this new danger that they had been presented with. Then, the matriarch gave a low, reluctant chirp, and the pack began to back down, skirting around the group as they headed off into the trees.

Once they were fully out of sight, Allen and Eric stood up slowly again on shaky legs. “Are…are they gone?” Eric whispered. Hiccup nodded slowly, before looking at his companions.

“I think so,” he replied. “Come on, we need to find the others.” He slipped Inferno back into its holster, and then led the way, heading through the bush in a different direction from the one the dinosaurs had taken.

It didn’t take long to find Astrid, Linda, and Ryan. They burst through the bushes toward Hiccup, Eric, and Allen, white-faced. “Raptors aren’t the only thing over here!” Astrid hissed. “We need to clear out!”

Under their feet the ground quaked, signaling something big moving their way. “God, can’t we ever get a break?!” Hiccup groused, turning and grabbing Eric and Allen by their arms and ushering them to run again.

A roar echoed through the trees, something deep and powerful, sounding almost like a train was bearing down on them. The trees grew dense ahead, slowing the group down momentarily, before another savannah opened up before them. At the far end, a crack in the valley floor opened up, and on the edge of it a sturdy looking building sat.

“Go! Go! Go!” Astrid yelled, all of them breaking out into a flat sprint. Hiccup made the mistake of looking back as their new pursuer broke through the forest’s edge, and yelped instinctively in fear.

It was a Tyrannosaurus. The raptors were intelligent and cunning, Dilophosaurus and Ceratosaurus were big and intimidating, but this was on an entirely different scale. And, it was moving a lot faster than Hiccup knew it should be.

The Tyrannosaurus roared again and came bearing down on them like a tank. Allen stumbled slightly as they reached the building, before scrambling back up as they grabbed at the bolt across the wide bay doors leading into the circular structure.

“It’s stuck!” Ryan yelled, pulling as hard as he could, but indeed the bolt stayed put, half-rusted in place.

Astrid whipped her sword up. “Look out!” she yelled, and swiped the blade down against the bolt. It cleaved through the rust holding the piece together, and finally it slid back, allowing them to pull the doors open and slip through.

Allen and Astrid scrambled in last, pulling the doors shut again and sliding in place the secondary lock inside, and seconds later the Tyrannosaurus outside rammed into the metal startling all of them and making them fall onto their backs. The material screeched and creaked from the weight and impact, and the doors warped inward, but luckily they did not break or swing open. A few more bashes rang through their ears, before the predator gave a frustrated hiss and turned, stomping away grumbling.

The group held still for a few more moments before daring to let out a collective breath of relief, and Hiccup slumped to the floor. “This is just getting to be too much,” he gasped. “I really hope someone gets here soon, or we’re not going to all make it.”

“I just realized something too,” Allen muttered darkly. “That means it wasn’t entirely because of you, Hiccup, that the raptors left. They knew the Tyrannosaurus was nearby, so they left the area because of the bigger predator.” He looked over at Hiccup, and then toward the far windows of the apparent observation platform. “If we don’t get off this island soon, they’ll be back as well, I’m sure.”

“And I’m fairly certain they’re smart enough to open doors,” Astrid said, darkening the mood further. “There’s almost no way they would have gotten that far inside that compound otherwise, and I don’t doubt they were responsible for those casualties.”

She walked over to the windows and looked out. The platform stuck slightly out over the canyon, supported by strong steel beams bolted into the rock; around the room they stood in, computers, notebooks, and observation gear lay haphazardly. Below the building, a thick fog filled the canyon due to the moisture below and cooler air from the morning. To the east however it cleared, and as Astrid peered out, she could see signs of habitation along the river in the canyon.

“Hey, Hiccup? You still got that spyglass of yours somewhere? I doubt I will know how to work any of the stuff in here.”

Hiccup sat up and reached into his right leg pocket, pulling out the thin spyglass and handing it over to Astrid, who extended it and peered out the window. “Yep,” she confirmed, “there’s a dock down in the canyon there. I…I can’t see any boats or other equipment from here, but it’s probably worth a look.”

“The scaffold here should lead down to the river,” Ryan said, pointing to the stairway that descended from the center of the room, spiraling into a more open second level. “We can follow the course to the docks from there.”

Astrid nodded. “Then let’s not waste any more time. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

* * *

<You hear that?> I asked, head perking up as my ears caught onto a faint noise, some sort of soft rumble in the distance.

Toothless looked up, and then swiveled his head and ears in the same direction mine were pointed. <Yeah, I do,> he affirmed. <That’s not thunder, or earth-caused.>

I nodded. <And I think that may give us a clue as to where our friends may be. Figures, they headed in the exact opposite direction that we did.>

We took off, rising high into the air and soaring over the forest again. Below, patches of savannah provided views of dozens of creatures I’d never thought I would see in person: Parasaurolophus, Iguanodon, Stegosaurus, and others grazing on the grass and low shrubs; within the trees the occasional flash of the new resident carnivores could be seen as well. The Spinosaurus we’d run into the night before had scored another meal, despite the burn wounds inflicted in our scuffle (and I was getting into a tick over the fact that it had been bipedal rather than the quadruped fossils suggested, but then this did all come from a movie universe). A pair of Dilophosaurus (surprisingly, these matched the fossils and not the movie creatures that had been designed) roamed the mountain ridge that we crested, and before us a wide valley stretched out, split in the distance by a canyon running down the middle.

<Hawken, there are buildings over there,> Toothless barked, nodding his head slightly to the south of us. <Knowing Hiccup, if they saw that then they would head there straightaway.>

<Agreed. Let’s check it out, quickly.>

The buildings were clearly not in good shape, even after only a day of change. Several doors leading to the outside were busted or torn from their hinges, and claw marks scarred the thin paint. Toothless and I landed, and I had him take watch outside as I morphed Viperwyrm and entered the compound, tasting the air as I went.

Immediately I felt my skin crawl, picking up the scent of barely day-old blood and gore; others had been here that were extant no longer. But, the blood did not belong to the familiar scents I knew as Hiccup and Astrid.

I traveled further, entering an atrium and immediately picking up a very fresh scent of the two. They weren’t alone anymore, however; another four people I could sense had been there at the same time. The trail led into an equipment hangar, and here the warning bells went off in my head again. I tasted dinosaur, as fresh as the people’s scents, and while I couldn’t pinpoint the species what with it being one Toothless and I hadn’t run into, something in the smell clearly screamed “predator.” There was blood too, splattered across the ground and around a mesh fence covering an electrical control system, but it belonged to the reptile; there had been a struggle.

<Hawken!> Toothless roared. My head snapped up and I bolted outside, morphing back to Night Fury and rising into the air. Toothless flew up next to me.

<You hear that? To the east?> he asked. I turned, scrutinizing the distance. The sound was distinct, someone screaming, and there was a noise like a large, squawking bird. My heartbeat quickened.

<They were in there not long ago,> I said, nodding to the compound below. <It’s got to be them; let’s go!>

We shot off across the landscape again, toward the canyon. “Hiccup!” I roared, but no one answered, save for another scream.

Near the edge of the canyon I spotted a lone Tyrannosaurus heading away from the area, and up ahead was an observation platform built on the edge of the chasm. In the canyon itself was a bank of fog, thickened by the cooler atmosphere within and obscuring our view of what was below. What it did not obscure however was Astrid’s voice, yelling with great concern about someone.

<I’m going in!> Toothless roared, diving down and firing off an echolocatory blast. We both stalled when the picture within the fog bounced back: a crisscrossing mesh of thick metal bars.

<Something’s been caged inside here,> I whispered. <Toothless, get ready for a fight!>

I sucked in a breath, and fired, the plasma exploding and ripping apart the metal, carving open a hole that Toothless and I dove into, teeth bared and ready to kill to save our friends.

* * *

The walkway was rickety and untrustworthy, shifting and creaking every few steps.

“I’m starting to be convinced that we’re going to die of shoddy construction before the dinosaurs get to us,” Hiccup snarked as the handhold he clasped twisted under his grip. “Let’s just get down and across this before it collapses completely.”

They continued downward, reaching a point where the walkway crossed over an open section of a side canyon. They couldn’t see where it met the other side, and surrounding them was fog that obscured any visible stabilizers as well as the actual distance across the gap. Astrid took point, stepping out onto the open walkway, and immediately it creaked and shifted under her feet, causing her and everyone else to scramble back.

“Okay, new tactic,” she whispered. “Let’s try this one at a time, get to the other side before the next person crosses. I’ll go first; that way if something goes wrong I’m fast enough to run either way.” She turned, and stepped forward again.

“Be careful,” Hiccup urged. Astrid turned and smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to try gymnastics here.”

“You know what I mean.”

She did, but didn’t want to voice the chance of something going wrong again. Astrid stepped forward again, halting as the scaffolding groaned, before continuing along, hands balanced over the railings just in case. Hiccup and the others disappeared rapidly from view as the fog closed up behind her, and suddenly Astrid felt very alone, unable to see either side. Worse, she felt like she was being watched somehow as she shuffled slowly toward the far end of the walkway. Instinctively she reached her right hand back, hovering again over the hilt of her sword.

Finally, the rock wall of the other side of the canyon came into view, and the walkway curved to follow the side of the cliff. Astrid moved a little faster, and breathed a sigh of relief when she looked down and saw the scaffold supports anchored to the rock beneath her feet.

“Alright,” she called back, “it’s safe! Next person come on over!”

The others looked between each other, debating silently who was next. “Alright Linda, you cross next,” Ryan urged.

“Me? What about you?” Linda argued.

“The sooner you cross the better I’ll feel,” Ryan countered.

Hiccup nodded in agreement. “Yes, you cross next Linda. Then we’ll send Eric, and I’ll go last to make sure there’s someone on both sides with a weapon to be safe.”

Linda sighed, clearly not okay with separating from her family but knowing there wasn’t another option. “Okay. Okay, I’ll go. You’ll be okay Eric?”

“I’m sure I can survive three minutes without you Mom,” Eric groaned. Linda nodded, ignoring the tone, and slowly turned and stepped carefully out onto the crosswalk.

A minute or two later and Linda called out her safe arrival, and Eric took a deep breath and braced himself, walking forward and into the fog. In front of him, nothing visible. Behind him, his father, Hiccup, and his uncle Allen vanished from sight as well, and the slight sound of the wind through the canyon was the only thing he could hear beyond the creaking of the metal under his feet.

Then, Eric realized that wasn’t wind he was hearing. The sound of air rushing over a surface drew closer, and suddenly something jarred the walkway, causing him to scramble for a handhold in fear of it breaking.

“Mom?” he called out cautiously, before realizing that wasn’t logical. But, didn’t the two Vikings say they had friends coming? “Toothless?” he called out instead. No answer came.

Up ahead, Astrid had moved down the path slightly, coming across an odd whitish smear that decorated the path and the wall nearby. A pungent, foul fishy odor that reminded her of the dragon version of restrooms in her village emanated from it, and Astrid’s heartbeat quickened. Seconds later, the fog shifted , and high above her head she spotted an interlocking mesh of steel bars, like the wire fences she’s seen around Hawken’s town but far sturdier.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, backing up toward Linda again and drawing her sword. “Oh God, we’re in a cage!”

“What?” Linda asked, her concern growing as the words registered. Astrid turned to her, eyes widening.

“We’re in a cage! There’s something in here with us!”

They both felt the jarring of the walkway moments later, and their attention focused on the crosswalk when Eric called out, “Mom?”

“Eric!” Linda called back, starting to move onto the crosswalk before Astrid stopped her.

“Let me, I’ve got the sword,” Astrid said, holding the blade out and walking out instead as she heard Eric then call out, “Toothless?” A prick of hope entered the Viking’s mind, before reality checked in again; the boy was making guesses.

Eric, for his part, hadn’t moved, but he could feel something padding down the walkway toward him from where his mother and Astrid had disappeared. Seconds later, the fog parted and revealed a long, pointed and heavily toothed beak, attached to a head that bore a tall, foreboding crest. It walked on its wings, approaching the boy with deadly intent.

“AAAHHH!” Eric screamed, turning and bolting back the way he’d come. The Pteranodon squawked and beat its wings, lifting off and aiming for the boy.

Hiccup and Astrid appeared from either side with their weapons out, trailed by the others, but the Pteranodon moved faster, grabbing Eric around the shoulders and dragging him roughly across the guardrails, diving down and disappearing into the fog-shrouded canyon.

“ERIC!!” Ryan screamed, halfway over the railing himself before sense came back to him.

“Dad!” the answer floated back, further down the canyon and moving away, before another call closer brought everyone’s heads craning upward. A second pterosaur was diving down through the clearing fog after them.

“Run!” Hiccup yelled, turning and bolting down the crosswalk as the reptile swept past. As it came around for another pass, he whipped out Inferno and ignited the blade, the sudden flare of heat and light stalling the Pteranodon and forcing it away.

“So much for being fish eaters!” he snapped.

Then, an explosion reverberated through the fog, making everyone freeze for a second, and following it a familiar screeching roar brought a flare of hope through Hiccup and Astrid.

Eric was too preoccupied to notice the new sounds, flailing violently to try and wrench himself from the claws of the pterosaur; falling a long ways into a river, he reasoned, was a lot better than being shredded by the beak that was far too close. He swung his hand up and weakly hit the side of the reptile’s leg, making the Pteranodon loosen its grip slightly.

The fog lightened a little more, and a row of flattened rock spires appeared below Eric, so he hit his captor again, and dropped.

“Oooofff!” he grunted, landing hard and rolling before scrambling to his feet and running across the spires, aiming for an alcove he could see on the canyon wall. An animalistic shriek sounded behind him, and Eric ducked as the reptile came after him again, before a second Pteranodon swept in from the side, wrenching Eric off balance as claws dug into the skin of his shoulders and chest. Like hot nails, they made the boy scream in pain.

Another shriek answered him, but not of a Pteranodon. This was louder, angrier, and carried with it a guttural tone that froze Eric’s blood, especially as a shrieking whistle built up immediately following and growing closer and louder at a rapid rate.

There was a bright flash, and Eric felt the Pteranodon that held onto him shudder violently as a wave of heat and pressure rolled by him, carrying with it the unsettling scent of charred flesh.

Then Eric found himself falling, tumbling through open air. His freefall didn’t last long, however, before he was grabbed bodily out of the air again.

“AAAAHHH!!” he screamed instinctively, feeling the claws tighten around him. Then…

“Hey, hey, it’s alright!” a nearby voice, almost boyish in tone but deeper, and slightly guttural, crooned to him. “Calm down, I’ve got you now,” it said again, and finally, Eric’s mind began to settle and comprehend that the paws holding onto him were not Pteranodon feet, and that he was flying again but smoothly, and whatever had him was a lot bigger than the pterosaurs. He glanced up.

A black, rounded scaly snout was looking upside down at him, and as they locked eyes the mouth opened in a wide, goofy toothless grin.

“You alright kid?” the creature asked, and finally Eric calmed enough to recognize just what, or who, was holding him now.

“T-Toothless?!”

“The one and only!”

“Since when do you talk?”

Toothless snorted as he banked, avoiding another Pteranodon and aiming down toward the river. “Since a year and a half ago or so,” he replied, “but that’s not important. Do you think you can swim?”

“Uh…I guess, why?” Eric asked cautiously.

“Because I’m going to set you in the river and you’re going to swim under it,” Toothless instructed. “Wait outside the cage until we get the others, okay?”

Eric was still working over the fact that a Night Fury had rescued him, but he nodded. Toothless grunted in affirmation and, after sending another fireball into a Pteranodon that was aiming for them, he dove down to where the metal cage entered the river and carefully dropped Eric into the water.

“Swim under and stay outside, got it?” the dragon called down again. Eric nodded, taking a deep breath and diving down. Toothless, meanwhile, turned and roared as he shot back up into the nearly burned-off fog. Hawken was still busy fighting off the pterosaurs up where they had cornered Astrid and whoever the woman was with her, and Toothless had a mind to find his rider and join in.

That’s when Eric’s mind noticed something else odd as he resurfaced outside the cage, and he stared incredulously. Was Toothless wearing… _armor?_

* * *

When the fireball to the face of the first didn’t scare off the rest of the Pteranodon, I roared and flared my wings, electricity dancing across the tips. One slam forward, and the electrical storm cleared the air enough that I was able to finally cling to the cliff face and look down to Astrid and her new companion, who was clearly terrified out of her mind at the sight of an even larger reptile looking at them.

“Took you long enough!” Astrid yelled up, but a smile was growing on her face again.

I snorted. “Yeah, Malin’s a little craftier than we gave him credit for!”

“No kidding!”

“He sent Pitch Black of all characters after both my sister and the university. The whole world will know about you guys soon, if not already.”

“Oh, wonderful, news goes from ridiculously bad to unfathomably bad!”

“What on earth is going on here?!” the woman next to Astrid half-shrieked. Astrid winced. “Oh, sorry. Linda, this is Hawken. Hawken, this is Linda. And look out!”

I spun and fired at the incoming pterosaur, sending it to the river far below, before holding out my paw to Astrid. In it, her axe materialized. “Thought you might want this back!” I said as she grabbed for it, securing the weapon on her back where it belonged. Then I lowered myself carefully over the pathway. “And, we need to get out of here; Astrid, I’m sure you can hang on so get on already!”

As she climbed onto my back I looked apologetically at Linda. “And, sorry if this is uncomfortable, but we need to get everyone out of here pronto,” I said. Once Astrid was situated I pushed away from the cliff and grabbed Linda around her middle, before dropping down to the river and passing Toothless as I did so.

“Kid’s okay!” he yelled as he passed, and I felt Linda go limp with relief at hearing those words.

I flared above the water, just within reach of the cage, and dropped Linda as Astrid climbed off. “Swim under!” I ordered. “I’ll be back soon with the others!”

I turned as they both dove down and powered up through the canyon again. Another electric outburst and the gathering swarm of pterosaurs were cleared, and I pulled up alongside Toothless, who unsurprisingly already had Hiccup back in the saddle and another of the two newcomers in his grip.

“Thought you might want these!” I yelled to Hiccup, gliding above him and dropping first his wings and then Framherja to him, both of which he quickly secured to himself.

“Thanks! Yeah, could have used these on several occasions now,” he called back. “We’ve got Allen, you get Ryan, and we can get out of here!”

I nodded, turning to the last man on the walkway and carefully picking him up. Toothless and I dove down once more, dropping the two in the river at the end of the cage, before we turned and headed back the way we came in.

“Where are we going?” Hiccup asked, swinging Framherja around and firing at the Pteranodon that was trying to intercept us. The bolt cracked with thunder as it connected, frying the pterosaur’s system and its fragile wings and sending it to the rocks and river below us.

<We blew a hole in the cage to get in,> Toothless answered his rider. <So, we need to head back through there and close it up so these prehistoric pain-in-the-butts don’t get out.>

“Ah.”

We powered upward, drawing behind us a swarm of Pteranodon. As the bent metal around our entry hole loomed ahead, I dropped slightly back behind Toothless so that he exited first. I came through behind him and immediately flared to spin around. Electromagnetic fields built up around me and snaked forward, grabbing the sharp metal tips and pulling them upward. Night Fury plasma tends to vaporize some of whatever it hits, so the bars no longer stretched fully across the gap, but by stretching them slightly the jagged ends covered enough so that as the lead Pteranodon came up, it flared and banked away to avoid crashing, unable to get through.

“That was just too close,” Hiccup huffed. “Thank the Lord you didn’t get here any later.”

“Would have been sooner if Malin hadn’t sent a guy with the same capacity as the Shadow Dragon after the schools back home,” I replied. “Told Astrid already, but Pitch Black gave us a fight. Your existence is no longer secret at all, I’m afraid.”

“You’re kidding. He has Pitch as an ally?”

“Worse. Toothless and I figured out a different theory: it’s Malin’s power, wherever he got it from. He can bring the fictional elements of humanity’s imagination to life. Basically, he’s pitting us against the villains of films we may or may not have seen.”

“Oh. Well isn’t that peachy?”

We glided down over the cage ad spotted the others on the bank of the river, dripping wet of course and waiting for us. Toothless and I landed and Hiccup climbed off, running over to Astrid and hugging her, while the newcomers focused on the two dragons in front of them.

“So I’m guessing a pair of Night Furies standing here isn’t quite as shocking to you as it would be to most people, what with having spent a day with the dragon riders here,” I said, smirking as I demorphed and black Myscale replaced my wings and tail. “I’m sure they’ve mentioned it by now, but I’m Hawken. Hopefully this isn’t too much of a throw-off.”

“Actually, the fact that Toothless is wearing armor is throwing me off more,” the boy (Eric, I’d heard someone say) remarked.

Hiccup snorted as he and Astrid separated. “Yeah, regular dragon scales don’t hold up to Mysteel, lucky arrows, and bullets too well,” he explained, “so we upped the protection.”

“Well, anyway, now that you’re here as Hiccup and Astrid had predicted,” Allen interjected, gesturing to Toothless and I, “are we able to escape this godforsaken island now?”

I winced. “Uh, problem here. See, I had been expecting to find only our two friends here, and the necessary mode of travel to get out of this place in decent time is exhausting. Between us Toothless and I may have only been able to get five hours of sleep in the past 36 hours or so, and dragons are not immune to tiring so I cannot physically transport everyone out until I actually get some decent rest.” I looked apologetically at the crew before me. “You’ll be relatively safe with a pair of dragons now though; we managed to drive off a Spinosaurus earlier.” I looked at Hiccup. “And this is definitely a Jurassic Park-inspired hellhole, as the Spino was running on two legs.”

“Yeah, he responded, “and the raptors are big, almost featherless, smart, and speak Dragonese.”

“What?”

“You heard me. They don’t understand people though.”

I blinked, not expecting this turn of events, before focusing on the previous topic. “Okay, well, anyway, unless we get a storm with lots of lightning in it I need to sleep for a time before we can leave. A few hours at least, and perhaps catch a fish or two, but I need rest.”

A deflated sigh escaped nearly everyone, before Astrid picked herself up and gestured down the river. “Well, then let’s go see if there’s a boat we can snag instead. The dock’s only a quarter mile down the river, and if we’re on that at least, we should be out of reach of most of the land predators.”

“Agreed,” Allen said, hoisting what was left in the pack he carried onto his shoulder; he wasn’t happy with the decision but he knew it was for the best. “And the sooner we get there, the sooner we might all be able to rest properly.”

The dock was indeed only about a quarter mile down the river, and unsurprisingly, either it was abandoned or had been cleared out by the new apex predators (I didn’t tell the others, but I suspected the latter; there were prints from some small theropod or dromaeosaur all over, and relatively fresh). A single vessel floated in the miniature marina, tied to the wooden planks of the station. It wasn’t much more than a small barge, but it would hold at least seven people and a medium-sized dragon. We piled aboard and found the gasoline-fueled motor, turning it on after several tries and then shoving off, slowly chugging down the river and warily watching the shores.

A herd of Brachiosaurus ambled to the edge of the waterway for a drink, watching us as we passed. After checking to make sure things were running smoothly (Allen was manning the wheel, Toothless half on guard, half dozing, and Astrid standing watch), I morphed to Viperwyrm once more and coiled myself around the central engine mount, close enough to everyone to awaken if something went wrong, but out of the way enough to that the others could move about freely.

“Wake me if anything happens, or catches your eye,” I mumbled to Hiccup, who nodded and clearly held back a sarcastic remark, before I drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think at the time I was writing these chapters, Jurassic World had just come out. No surprise where the inspiration came from...I loved all the Jurassic movies.  
> Not quite done just yet with the dinosaur bit either; there's still a surprise or two to be had.


	24. Tsefan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally the title for this chapter was meant to be just that: a special title. Props to those who can tell me what it means. Later on though, the same term will come to be so much more meaningful...

_What one means for evil_

_Another shall use for good_

_Within the shadows of the darkness_

_Still the weakest light triumphs_

_Even when buried deep_

_Still shall it rise up_

“Following protocol triple-nine-three-A, among others, we cannot just let you leave after something like this occurs. Witness statements are being taken, and unfortunately circumstantial evidence leaves you, if not a suspect, then at least a hand in the damage and injury that has occurred here. We have to take you in for further questioning.”

“It’s not like you have much of a choice either,” Embron snapped, getting fed up far too quickly with the painfully by-the-book sergeant standing before him, a man who was trying to grasp straws and connect them in any way that would help his argument. The dragon knew of military protocols (after all Hawken’s mother was a National Guardsman), but the situation was an unprecedented event and, if it wasn’t already obvious, the Nightmare was not human.

“I am acting liaison at the moment, but that does not mean I don’t have other necessary duties of my own to perform to prepare for what’s coming,” Embron continued, towering over the uniformed man. Intimidation factor alone was slowly letting him win this exhausting argument as the entire Air Force and likely the heads of all military branches likely knew now that he was Hawken’s brother (more or less), and that meant they had no idea what he was capable of if it came to conflict. “All of America is about to be thrown into war, alongside people of a world you didn’t know existed until today, and with Hawken having left looking for our missing friends this is not the time to be trying to restrain us with redundant policies just because you’re not sure what to do next. You want someone to blame for the mess, blame the actual perpetrator.”

Embron leaned down so that he could look the sergeant in the eye. “If you want to know who these allies are alongside US forces, I may be permitted to take three men, no more, to Berk so that you may meet the Chief, and understand where we are standing,” he explained. “But, remember that I am not human, we are dual citizens of two separate earths, and therefore standard protocol is going to break down very rapidly here. Is that understood?”

There was a moment of silence as the sergeant and his backup processed the tongue-lashing they’d just received from the dragon. When they could find no more useful arguments or evidence for their case without turning in circles (after an entire morning of debating with a Monstrous Nightmare who’d refuted or circumnavigated every single point they’d tried to throw at him, somehow), the man nodded.

Embron smiled, allowing his posture to finally relax. “Good. Now, choose your two men, and listen to everything I say. After all, where we’re going you are to obey the rules that Stoick sets down, whether you fully agree with them or not. Pick carefully.”

A few minutes later, three hard-core military officers were screaming at a pitch to rival teenage girls at a boy band concert, clinging to Embron’s spines as he dove down toward the portal. To the men, it appeared as if they were about to crash into dirt and fence, until Embron tilted up slightly and they sped through the hole in the air. Then, they were all screaming as tall pine trees erupted into their view, sweeping past in a blur.

“You know, loud noises are kind of annoying to dragons,” Embron griped, but he couldn’t quite hide the smirk as he glanced back at their petrified expressions. “And, you can open your eyes now; we’re not running into the trees any time soon.”

Slowly, they did so, releasing their death grips ever so slightly and taking in the starkly different scene laid out before them: a large, mountainous island surrounded by a choppy gray sea, and up ahead was a village they are all at least vaguely familiar with, houses packed almost precariously on hillsides and cliffs.

Embron slowed his pace as he glided in for a landing in the central plaza, where he could see both Stoick and Valka directing the bustling village traffic. The Nightmare kneeled down so that the now weak-kneed soldiers could disembark, and then led them toward the chief.

“Gobber, help Spitelout make sure all the armor sets are prepped and ready for battle by tonight!” Stoick bellowed, pointing at the smith for a moment. “Feren, make sure that Teshra and Twintail are doing their jobs and –oh, Embron! Glad te see you’re back!” His eyes traveled from the dragon down to the uniformed men standing awkwardly to the side, and he frowned. “And I see we have some visitors already. Here te discuss plans for the upcoming war, men? Or just trying te get yer bearings?”

“Well, uh, more the latter, perhaps; we came mostly to find out what we should be expecting from here,” the sergeant replied. “Name’s Sergeant William Latham, sir, and I’m supposed to be reporting back to our superiors on what exactly is going on here. All we know at the moment is that an unauthorized, untraceable jet took off from the city yesterday, shortly before a terrorist like we have never seen before staged an attack on a city school and the university there.”

Stoick nodded. “Yes, the others informed me of what occurred. I regret te tell you that we’re mostly at the speculation stage at the moment as well, unfortunately, but the man behind this has encountered our friend Hawken before. Ye might find records if you look for the name Jonathan Malin.”

“He’s allies with a once-fictional character by the name of Pitch Black,” Valka added in, walking up to the group with Cloudjumper in tow. “And I don’t want te hear one word about how we are all supposed te be fictional characters as well. The point is, Pitch is the one who attacked the city, and he’s still alive and out there somewhere. Hawken is the only person I have ever seen with a power to match him, and I fear Malin will not be limited to the handful of tricks he’s shown us already.”

“Agreed,” Stoick toned, turning toward the Great Hall above them with Thornado at his side. “Come inside, all of you. It is best we discuss this where there will be fewer disturbances.” As if to prove his point, the twins came barreling past holding up something suspiciously large, angular, and covered with canvas. “Ugh, case in point,” the chief muttered. “Ruffnut! Tuffnut! If that’s what I think it is you’ll both be assigned to cleanup duty during this fight!”

* * *

Coasting down the river brought an odd sense of serenity to Hiccup. He felt disconnected from the dangers no doubt surrounding them, the sounds of the rainforest sent back in time echoing now as a calming background, more so when he knew the two beings he saw as brothers lay almost within touching distance just behind him.

They’d traveled several miles down the winding watercourse, hours of quiet easing their tension while slowly exiting the canyon. Now, they were instead flanked on both sides by wide swaths of thick forest, punctuated by sweeps of savannah. As they rounded another bend, Astrid walked up next to Hiccup and leaned against the boat’s railing, looking off into the forest as well.

“I wonder if this will stick around when we kick Malin’s posterior, or if it will go back to what it was before,” she mused. “I mean, if it weren’t for all the big predators, this place would be kind of cool now.”

“It’s not natural though,” Hiccup returned. “The dinosaurs aren’t really supposed to be here anymore.”

“I don’t know; God let Hawken bring Zipeau into our little circle,” Astrid countered. “It was a bit of an overall odd circumstance that resulted in that, I will admit, but…well, I don’t know.” She looked at Hiccup with an unreadable expression, and then out at the jungle again. “This place was made for no good, and people have been killed, but…I wonder how many times we’ve seen something terrible that turned to our benefit.”

Hiccup shrugged and turned to face her, working out how to respond. There were definitely several times he could think of off the top of his head: Eustace, Aurianna, Ingavar’s change of heart…

He never got the opportunity to formulate his words however. As the current brought them around another corner the boat drifted very, very close to the southern shore of the river, and a piercing growl split the air. Hiccup turned in time only to see the claws of a female raptor heading his way, and the reptile collided with him, throwing both across the deck of the vessel before the raptor locked its jaws around Hiccup’s arm, dragging him toward the boat’s edge.

Astrid yelped in shock before the sound turned to a yell of rage, whipping out her axe, only for a second raptor to collide with her back in her distraction, knocking the weapon from her hands as she fell face-first to the deck.

<Hiccup!> Toothless roared, leaping up as the rest of the pack jumped aboard and turning to defend his brother, only to find himself surrounded by several of the dinosaurs. They had figured out who the threats were, and were focusing nearly all their attention on him, Hiccup, and Astrid, while the other people on the boat backed up as far as they could from the reptiles.

In the sudden chaos, they had all momentarily forgotten or failed to notice the Viperwyrm coiled around the engine mount, who was awakened by the sudden noise and made his presence known with an extremely ticked off and menacing hiss.

* * *

I awoke to Toothless’ screaming, and an answering echo of shrieks and growls. Quickly, I unraveled myself and rose up, towering over the scene and drawing the attention of the raptors; as Hiccup had described they were clearly more like the film version than any extant species, with only the males bearing small quill-like feathers on their necks and heads, and all of them were waving their tails in a cat-like manner as they observed me.

Hiccup had also mentioned before that he had heard the raptors calling in a dialect of Dragonese, but it still shocked me when the largest female chittered to a nearby male, <Threat! Attack!> The male chittered in agreement and whipped around, leaping at me with teeth bared and talons swinging forward. Unfortunately for him, I was faster.

I ducked to the side as he entered the space I had just been occupying and snapped my head forward, jaws opening and fangs swinging out. The dinosaur yelped as he tried uselessly to backpedal in midair as my jaws clamped down on the raptor’s neck, fangs not penetrating but instead hooking around and trapping him (though the rest of my teeth raked scales and drew blood). The raptor turned and tried to swipe at me, but soon found his claws either unable to reach me or having no effect on my hard scales.

<Don’t move,> I hissed, drawing a wide-eyed stare from my captive and garnering any and all attention from the other raptors I hadn’t gained yet.

<Threat talk!> one of them chittered, and I used the stall in motion to whip my tail around the back side of the wheel cab, coiling around the raptor that had Hiccup pinned and hoisting her off the Viking before throwing her into the one trying to bring down Astrid. Both of them were sent tumbling toward the rest of the pack that had cornered Toothless from the momentum, groaning loudly and rolling to their feet before readying to pounce again.

<Wait!> the matriarch screeched, halting the pair. Then, she barked at the ones around Toothless, and they backed off, allowing the Night Fury to run to Hiccup and Astrid and check them over while he stood guarding them.

The raptors kept their gazes locked on me however, as I still held one of their own, and the boat had drifted away from the shore so they could no longer easily escape. They were now at a disadvantage, and they knew it, especially when Toothless lifted off the deck, circling the boat with the two Vikings on his back.

Slowly, I coiled my tail around the captive raptor and opened my mouth, still holding him in place but freeing the rest of me to morph human. A new chitter raced through the pack, something that I could not translate from their dialect, and the matriarch stepped forward, head cocked to the side in clear curiosity and confusion.

“What’s going on?” I heard Ryan whisper behind me. “What are they saying?”

“Not sure,” I muttered back. “Just stay put and don’t move.”

“No problem there.”

<Threat is prey creature?> the matriarch chittered, drawing my full attention again.

<No,> I growled back. <Not prey, nothing here is prey. No threat, if not threatened.>

<I might still be a threat after that display,> Toothless hissed above, and I sent him a glare before I focused again on the lead raptor.

<Confused,> she chirped, clearly trying but failing to understand what we were.

That’s when a revelation finally started to hit me in full: the raptors were simply trying to survive, trying to hunt. They were doing what they were made to do, and could not be blamed for the situation here. Malin could, having made this all his sadistic tool, but these were innocent animals. Intelligent animals too…if…

“I’ve got an idea,” I said, moving to slowly release the male I still held captive, who immediately darted away to stand behind his alpha.

“What are you doing?” Hiccup called down, concern rising again in his voice.

“Remember when Amethyst and the other Descendants came to live with us?” I responded, white scales rippling across my skin as I morphed to Wind Fury and took in a deep breath. A wisp of ethereal white fire flowed out, and I focused on it, concentrating energy around it and gathering the wide-eyed stares of the raptors as rivulets of light wrapped around my paws and leapt into the air in front of me. “We have a chance to use Malin’s weapons against him, and expand the family at the same time. I just have to break whatever connection he has with them.”

“But, the energy that uses, won’t it”-

I’d already set the process in motion however and couldn’t take it back, and Hiccup was cut off as spears of white, crackling fire raced from the sphere in front of me and struck each of the reptiles dead on. These were already living creatures, so the energy expenditure was nowhere near what it had been when I had actually brought Amethyst and the others to life, but in order to break the spell that had brought this to existence, that still required the outside influence of something else alive: me. Not to mention, giving them some rudimentary basics of memory like I had last time…well, that is somewhat costly on the side.

The light show held everyone’s gaze, the energy streams flowing across each of the raptors, and I saw their eyes snap fully open, irises changing color slightly from their cold yellow hue to a lighter fluorescent yellow-green similar to Toothless’, and their scales morphed ever so slightly, turning glossier in texture. Then, as soon as it had started, it was over. I dropped to my knees, breathing hard as I morphed back, and the raptors glanced around as they too respired as if having just come out of a marathon, still wide-eyed as they attempted to process the events that transpired.

<What…what happened?> the matriarch queried, stumbling as she took a step forward. <What’s going on?>

“I…cut you off from the evil intent that originally brought you to life,” I said quietly. Her head swung around to focus on me again.

“I can understand –oh!” she exclaimed, reaching up and touching her throat as the new language escaped her vocal cords.

I nodded. “Yes, you can understand and speak English now, one of the side-effects of being made a Descendant it would seem.” I attempted to stand, but found barely any strength to do so, so I instead smiled apologetically. “You all have been made fully sentient, no longer tied to this island or the man who changed it, and capable of making choices beyond simple kill or be killed.”

I looked up a Hiccup, and smiled somewhat sheepishly. “Safe to land guys. And…sorry to put you on the spot Hiccup, but you’ll need to explain from here. I’m not going to be able to stay awake any longer.”

Hiccup began to protest, echoed by the still-insecure people standing on the boat already, but my eyelids were already drooping again. One last time, I morphed to Viperwyrm, barely managed to coil over the motor mount, and then I was out.

* * *

Hiccup groaned in frustration when the snake mimic basically collapsed into unconsciousness again, but he knew that if Hawken didn’t sleep they were never getting out of here any time soon. Begrudgingly, he also silently admitted to himself that what had just transpired may eventually turn a benefit, so he wouldn’t snap too much later. Instead, he nudged Toothless down to the deck of the ship again, and glanced awkwardly at the raptors that, he assumed, were about to become the newest additions to their already sizeable team. They all obviously expected some clearing up of the details, fixing him with expectant stares and waiting patiently for him to speak.

“Well…” Hiccup began, gesturing his hands emptily. “I have no idea where to start on this. Last time Hawken dropped a surprise on us like this he was absent for three days filling the others in, so…”

“We…well, I can only speak certainly for myself,” the alpha spoke up again. “I know what you are, what I am. I remember…I remember the past day, what occurred before he did…this. Uh, background is known, but no meaning, no names.”

She was direct and to the point, Hiccup would grant the raptor that. He nodded. “Okay, well, Hawken is the one who did…whatever you want to call it, and I’m Hiccup, this is Toothless, Astrid, and,” he turned to the others, “uh, Eric, Ryan, Allen and Linda.”

“Yeah, and being introduced to a bunch of dinosaurs who were just trying to eat us might be the oddest thing I’ve experienced today,” Astrid piped up bluntly. “And that’s saying something.”

Hiccup gave her a glare, before turning toward the lead raptor again. “And…uh, I don’t know if Hawken gave the others the names they have or if they chose them, but, uh, do you have any notion of what you’re supposed to be called?”

Everyone on the boat fell silent as they pondered this. Finally, one by one the raptors shook their heads. “Then that’s where we’ll begin,” Hiccup decided. “I think we need a different label than Velociraptors, as you definitely don’t fit that species, so...” he trailed off as he mused over this.

“How about…Metaraptor?” Astrid posed. “It’s catchy, short, rather fits since this place is not fully natural.”

“Actually, I like the sound of that,” Hiccup agreed, and then pointed to the alpha. “And, for your name, how about…Delta?”

The raptor’s eyes brightened and she nodded, eliciting a smile from Hiccup. “Alright, now we’re getting somewhere!”

* * *

Evening had fallen, and with it came a new, building tension. They were nearing the coast, and no one wanted to spend another night on the island, not even the raptors, now that they knew, truly, what a continued existence for them there would have meant. Ryan and his family were clearly still uncomfortable near the dinosaur pack, but on the other hand they were also nearly as awkward near Toothless, and Hiccup picked up on this rapidly.

“You guys feeling alright?” he asked, walking up to the group and being careful not to step on Hawken’s tail, which was limply splayed out across the walk-space, on his way over. “Look, I can understand a little bit of animosity considering what happened,” he continued, glancing toward the reptiles at the other end of the boat, “but believe me when I say you’re safe around these guys now, as much as you would be me.”

“Well, you’re used to living around talking reptiles though,” Linda pointed out. “We aren’t.”

“It’s no different than having lived around one culture and then being exposed to another,” Toothless spoke up, having picked up on the conversation from where he lay nearby. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt as Hiccup is probably the most forgiving one here, but he did just manage to hold a nearly five-hour conversation with a bunch of featherless birds.”

“I heard that,” one of the raptors, recently dubbed Quicksilver (due to the silvery stripe that ran across his eyes), muttered nearby.

“I know,” Toothless returned smugly, before his attention was drawn upward by something wet splattering across his snout. “Looks like rain’s coming in again,” he sighed, stating the obvious, before glancing at the cabin around the wheel mount, and spreading one of his wings. “There’s certainly not enough room for everyone in there. If you want to keep dry, here.”

Unsurprisingly, the non-Berkians hesitated to take him up on the offer while Hiccup and Astrid immediately ducked under the scaly umbrella (the raptors remained unfazed by the precipitation). Only when the rain began to fall harder did they finally let go of their insecurities and crowded with the Vikings under Toothless’ wing, looking out into the downpour.

“Figures,” Hiccup groused. “First storm we get after you guys find us and there’s no lightning to use to get out of here.”

“And how exactly does that help us get out of this place?” Allen asked. “I’ve heard you and Hawken mention it, but I’m failing to grasp whatever concept you’re intending to use here.”

Hiccup chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, about that; Hawken came up with a dragon form several years ago that he discovered has the capacity to absorb energy and use it to travel, uh, kind of like the Skrill via electricity.” He grinned. “Big difference is we can move even faster, and he can take others with him. So hopefully, this storm will give us a little light show, or we’ll be stuck waiting for Hawken to get the sleep he needs.”

“Uh, guys, any idea what that is?” Eric suddenly piped up, pointing behind them off the stern. Underneath the rain-spattered surface of the river, sudden flashes of silver were appearing in odd patterns, heading more or less in the direction of the boat.

Hiccup turned around and crawled back to the edge to try and get a better look, and he spotted one of the raptors, Phoenix, also edging toward the stern, peering through the dappled and broken water surface.

“They’re fish,” Phoenix informed, cocking her head to the side. “Probably mullet, or bonitos; something’s spooking them.”

“Uh, like what kind of something?” Astrid asked warily.

“Probably a bigger fish,” Phoenix replied, “or maybe an aquatic predator like a caiman.”

A coughing, spluttering noise drew everyone’s attention suddenly to the engine, and their eyes widened. “Oh, great,” Ryan muttered. “The engine’s run out of gas.”

“Alright, well, the river will continue to carry us downstream,” Hiccup tried to reassure. “And we’re not going to get out of here yet, so traveling a little slower should be…Toothless, you okay?”

As soon as the motor had died Toothless’ head had perked up, his ears following as his head turned toward the water. “It’s not a fish down there,” he growled, eyes widening and pupils turning to slits. “It’s something bigger.”

Everyone went silent, eyes glued to the river and several of them moving away from the edge of the boat. The flashes of fish continued growing closer, before they were practically right under the boat, and then they disappeared following a massive swirl in the water beyond.

The air seemed to freeze for a moment save the rain, with people, dragon, and dinosaurs not moving an inch. Then something thin, scaly, and bony split the surface of the water, heading straight for the vessel.

“Get down!” Toothless screeched, anchoring himself and bringing his wings down, covering the people as their pursuer rammed the boat, hard.

* * *

I awoke a second time not only to Toothless’ scream but a jarring force slamming into the boat. Still groggy, my head wavered upward, eyes focusing through the rain that was falling to see Toothless crouched down over Hiccup, Ryan, and the others, and the raptors braced against the deck.

“What on earth?!” I muttered loudly.

“We’re under attack!” came the reply from one of the raptors, followed by a force jarring the boat again, only from the opposite direction of the first attack. Unprepared for this, several of the others skidded across the deck, and one of the raptors fell overboard.

“Natasha!” Hiccup cried, spurring me to action. I expanded in size again and uncoiled, throwing my tail into the water and reaching to grab the raptor whose name was now apparently Natasha.

Something else grabbed me first however, an immense pressure coupled with dozens of sharp teeth clamping down on my tail and sending pain radiating up through me. I yelped from the agony and shock before being dragged underwater, unprepared for the attack. As soon as I was submerged, my knee-jerk reaction was to heat up, the water around me suddenly boiling. Whatever had grabbed me unsurprisingly let go, and I healed the bite wound and grabbed Natasha nearby before turning to see what our attacker was.

There was a pair of Spinosaurus in the water, one that had focused on Natasha and I and the other still going after the boat. I rapidly changed form again, expanding as I did so and tossing Natasha back onto the vessel before pushing it toward the shore.

“Hiccup, Toothless, get in the air!” I yelled. “Everyone else, on shore! They’re Spinosaurus!”

Hiccup and Toothless listened, thankfully, both of them lifting off the boat (and Hiccup giving our new compatriots another shock as his mechanical wings extended). I, meanwhile, now took up a very large portion of the river as a Doomfang, not full-sized or I wouldn’t be able to maneuver well but still far larger than the two apex predators lurking under the surface.

The others disembarked rapidly from the boat and quickly retreated from the shore, the raptors and Astrid forming a line of defense to the back of the group, as the Spinosaurus both surfaced and turned to face me. The spines along my neck rose up and I snarled, bearing foot-long teeth, and my wings flared out behind me. But, these two reptiles did not fear much, and after regarding each other for a moment, they charged me.

Thunder cracked as Hiccup fired Framherja, the electricity making the water dance and driving the predators down the river slightly. Toothless swept by next, shrieking as he released a fireball that erupted indigo and orange and scorched the flank of the nearest Spinosaur. It roared and swept its jaws around, trying to snap at the Night Fury that had already returned high into the air. With the one distracted I snaked up onto shore and fired my own breath weapon, the stream of ice rising up in a wall along the sand.

<We need to get off the island,> Toothless called down to me. <Boat’s out of gas, these guys we both know are persistent, and->

<Yes, I know Toothless!> I snapped, rearing over the ice wall and roaring at the super-predators. <But in case you didn’t notice, I’m still a little worn out. I can’t transport everyone here yet, not safely; not even Framherja’s bolts have enough energy to help.>

“Then let’s drive these guys off and focus on the next plan!” Hiccup yelled down, firing Framherja again and leaving a burn mark across the sail of the Spinosaurus that didn’t bear the brand of Toothless’ fire.

The thunder that rolled afterward was not from the bow however. Light emanated from somewhere above and to the south of us as the storm gained strength, and my angered frown began to turn.

“Finally!” I exclaimed, taking off into the air and shrinking to yet another form, the Skrill. “Hiccup! Get everyone together, link hands and be ready!” I yelled.

“Got it!” he replied, firing his bow once more to buy a moment and diving toward the others. I, meanwhile, rose into the air and spread my wings wide, extending my spines to make the best target possible.

The air was silent save for the rain for a moment as I continued to gain height, and then I felt it: the prickly ants-on-the-skin sensation of static charges building in the air. I braced myself.

The sky vanished in white when the bolt hit, the deafening sound of exploding air rocking the world around me as six billion volts rushed into my system. Suddenly I was no longer tired, and full of the energy necessary to finally leave this place.

The storm wasn’t done yet though, and as I dove down again the static built once more. So, I used this bolt as well, riding almost to the ground on it and then aiming the rest of the charge at the ice wall near the two Spinosaurus. Unsurprisingly, the structure exploded, rippling through the air from the shockwave and sending shards flying away from where the lightning hit, showering the predators.

At this point, the two large dinosaurs had had enough, roaring both in pain from the ice shards and burns as well as bewilderment from the explosive sound of thunder. Slowly they both turned, setting off to swim across the river, and I hovered, watching, until they were far enough away to not be an immediate danger if they changed their minds. Then, I turned and carefully landed near the others who had luckily listened to Hiccup.

“Alright everyone,” I said, morphing one last time, “hold tight, and don’t let go. We’re getting out of here!”

A moment later we were off, streaking through the sky and leaving behind the island that Malin had dropped into prehistory. I waited until Eric, Ryan and company stopped screaming at the sudden new sensation before turning to them, grinning, to ask, “So, where should I drop you off?”


	25. Healed Heart

_Darkness breaks to light of day_

_Dawn triumphs the night_

_Hardened souls will oft give way_

_When drowned in what is right_

It was several hours passed before Hiccup, the others and I returned home, the roiling shock of thunder first drawing Holly, Amethyst, and the other Descendants out of the house. Amethyst greeted Toothless, Astrid, and Hiccup warmly while everyone else turned to regard the raptor pack with perplexed expressions. Knowing the questions that would follow, I simply told them all to follow me as we all headed to the village to announce the safe return of Hiccup and Astrid.

When we touched down in the plaza, word spread rapidly and it wasn’t long before Thorn, Cloudjumper and Valka showed up first. Astrid ran straight to her Nadder as Valka smothered Hiccup in an embrace only outdone by his father when Stoick showed up moments later.

“Astrid!”

Said Viking girl turned her head as Sigrid raced up with Scarlet atop her shoulder, the healer also vigorously embracing her daughter.

“Thank God you’re alright,” Sigrid breathed, halfway to sobbing. Astrid chuckled, trying to hide tears of her own.

“Well, you know,” she began, “takes a little more than being kidnapped and thrown into the middle of nowhere to get rid of me.” A chuckle escaped both of them, before Astrid’s tone turned serious. “We did, however, figure out how Malin is putting all this together.”

“And how is this?” Stoick asked, finally releasing Hiccup and permitting the latter to breathe again. “The man once kidnapped Hawken, and now has done the same to my only son and one of my most skilled warriors. Any advantage we can get on this we need te take.”

“Easier said than done, I’m afraid,” I said, gesturing my hand to our newest additions to the family. “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to our newest family members: Delta, Phoenix, Natasha, Rachel, Talon, Shadow, Quicksilver, and Silas. We call them Metaraptors, the modified movie version of velociraptors from the Jurassic Park movies I know Hiccup has described in detail to some of you.”

I focused on Stoick directly before continuing. “Basically, we figured out that Malin has the capacity to bring to life and modify the imaginative creations that humanity has made in films and other fictional media. That’s how he gained the help of Rattlesnake Jake and Pitch Black: he brought them directly to life.”

“And he dumped us on an island full of dinosaurs, which is where we came across these guys,” Astrid said, nodding to the raptors. “He’s creating these characters and objects for his own purposes, but it seems they can still be taken under outside influence.”

Astrid’s eyes widened suddenly then, and she turned to me. “That reminds me,” she began, “we were with Jake for hours on that jet, and we saw him falter when he was ordered to throw us out. I know he’s at least had a thought or two about taking a different path than what Malin made him for; we might have a chance to break him away too if we keep at it.”

I nodded, thoughtful. “Perhaps, but I will not base actions on a maybe, and I’m sure Stoick will agree especially after what you guys went through. Come morning we have to locate where Malin is and hopefully throw him off balance if not take him out before things devolve further. He’ll take what he thinks is the simpler route to an end first before moving on to more drastic means, but he is probably going to be prudent about it. I want to take only a handful of people though, lessen the risk of our own force as a whole acting unprepared; Kingsley, you’ll come to help deal with Jake, and Delta and Shadow, along with Amethyst, Ember, and Orha for firepower.”

“Hold on, what about us?” Hiccup retorted.

“I’m not letting you guys risk your necks this soon again,” I countered, eyes darkening brown to convey I meant business. “And, after that scare not only do I think you need a little family time, but I want you guys to practice a little on your reaction speeds. In fact, it’d be a good thing to get Eret and Spitfire involved as well, considering they’re new at this too.”

I turned from them and looked to Fishlegs. “In the morning, do me a favor and contact the Asgardians; any help we can get I have the feeling we’ll probably need. And Valka, I know that Tohar pledged his help if we ever needed it, so if you and Cloudjumper can fly north to contact him, even better.” I started heading back in the direction of my house, feeling the stress of the day weighing down on me again. “I’ll meet you guys here tomorrow morning at seven a.m. sharp, but in the meantime, I need to talk with Holly and Embron and prepare; tomorrow the next phase of the war begins in earnest.”

I hated saying words like that, as it meant more than just another full day ahead, but there was no avoiding it. When I actually returned to my house with Descendants in tow, Embron updated me on what had transpired with the local law enforcement and the military. While they were clearly reluctant to be waiting for our word, probably half because what we were doing was almost akin to vigilante fighting, we had their support (I have little doubt my mother’s high rank in the air force had some effect on that decision). That meant as well that, for now, reporters and news firms wouldn’t be bothering us, as our preparations were now classified as national security.

Within our own ranks however…

“I am not being left out,” Holly firmly stated, crossing her arms and standing resolutely in the living room much to me and my parents’ chagrin.

“And I’m not letting my thirteen-year-old sister run into the middle of a war when this finally blows up!” I countered. “If I lost you”-

“And you won’t!” she snapped. “I have my own armor, I have plenty to defend myself with and I’ll prove it if you want me to pull out my collection, Nara is fast and protective, and I can’t miss a shot.”

I looked at her dead on, eyes gray. “Everyone slips up, and I find it hard to believe that you’re a better shot than even Ember,” I toned. “I will _not_ risk losing my sister, not after what I saw thanks to Pitch, so unless you’ve got some _really_ good evidence for why you should even be allowed anywhere near…”

Holly pulled her shirt off her right shoulder, revealing the skin of her upper arm and making me choke on my own words. A silvery symbol graced her skin, one that looked nothing like any I’d seen on the others of the team: the unmistakable profile of a Night Fury’s head, firing a flame-laced arrow.

“I didn’t tell you about this, but it showed up when the last blood moon occurred,” Holly said quietly. “I know what you said about the others who were similarly branded. And I’ve been practicing since, with Nara; even in flight on her back and trying to hit a moving target, I’ve never missed once. I don’t think that’s coincidence.”

I sighed. There were some things that I could not deny or prevent, and if Yah had deemed Holly to be among those marked as part of the team, well…

“Then I will make sure you’re as protected as I can, when this starts,” I said, interrupting my father’s protest. “Whatever happens you will stay with Nara, and perhaps Teshra or whoever I can assign with you, and I think I might pair you with the raptor pack.” I glanced back at Delta and the others, who nodded. “They haven’t been here long, but they’re already proving themselves part of the family.”

“You can’t seriously be considering this!” my father finally exploded. “I am _not_ letting my daughter get caught up in a war!”

“We don’t really have a choice!” Holly snapped back. “You want to argue with a sign from God? I watched when Pitch went after the university too; if Malin used characters like him then there’s a fair chance of his getting his way unless nobody backs down on our side. If the nutcase does win, there’s nowhere safe you can put me anyway. And, it would be better if we can get all of us fighting. Mom, Dad, I know both of you have tactical training; I started learning from you, after all.”

“Yes, but we don’t have anything that would protect us from a military-grade weapon,” my mom replied sternly. “If we tried to fight somehow we’d be nothing but new targets, and the biggest ones because Malin is targeting our family and friends anyway.”

“Not entirely true,” Zipeau spoke up, coming up the stairs with Feren in tow behind him. They were carrying up several sets of armor, and only one of them I recognized as Holly’s. “We were working with Ember several weeks ago, after her last semi-vision,” he explained. “They were designed for both of you in case of a situation like this. Both can hold just about any size gun you can use with just your hands, and they have spaces for carrying hundreds of rounds at a time without slowing you down any more than the weight would.”

“After all, in a way you’re our parents as well, and none of the Descendants want to lose you either,” Feren added softly. They set the suits down across the dining room table, each one slick and adorned in swirling shades of black, green and deep violet (save Holly’s, standing out in her trademark black and red).

Neither of my parents said anything for a several minutes as they took in this newest development. Finally, my mother slowly reached forward, picking up the helmet meant to be hers, already complete with a visor and the built-in com set.

“I guess that settles it,” she finally sighed, a reluctant tear of acceptance falling down her face. “Sam, they’re right; Malin wins and we won’t be around anyway. War’s about to begin, and I should go speak with Valka when I get the chance.”

* * *

The morning sky was mostly clear, dotted by a handful of high clouds but otherwise unmarred as the cloaked jet approached the city. Malin smiled, seeing the daily hustle of the unassuming populace below him. It was a population more or less devoid of weapons, relying solely on the protection of a police and military force that, while formidable, would never be ready for what came next. Foolish politicians, conveniently for him failing to see that when defenses were out of civilian hands, only the unlawful were left.

Up ahead, his true target came into view: an unmistakable white building capped by a proud, smooth dome, and his inside eyes confirmed the intended quarry was home. They had come in this far almost completely undetected, and it looked like they would make the last stretch under cover as well.

Perfect. Malin nodded in satisfaction and turned, facing toward the main cabin.

“We land in two minutes; are you prepared, Jake?”

“It’s almost an insult that you ask,” the diamondback growled back, spinning the barrels of his Gatling gun. “Finally got something more my style; none of that boring sit-and-wait tactic crap we’ve been pulling recently.”

“So long as you keep the place secure,” Malin replied curtly, bringing a radio to his mouth. “Get ready to drop, I’m calling it in.” He pressed the call button, a slight static coming in as the channel opened.

“Code 60-32: detonate.”

Seconds later, blinding flashes lit up the already bright sky all around the city’s perimeter, setting off a wave of chaos as shockwaves and sound echoed out from the explosions. Gunshots and screaming erupted shortly afterward. The jet floated unseen above the White House for a few moments more as the occupants watched the city unravel before Malin signaled the pilot. The cloak dropped as they set down, cargo door opening and Jake spilling out first, gun spinning in warning as he loomed above the house guards that came running.

When the first opened fire, his bullets bouncing harmlessly (if inflicting some annoying stings) off Jake’s scales, the rattlesnake bared his fangs in response and returned fire. The Gatling muzzle flashed in a barrage of projectiles, and the result was devastating: seconds later not a single guard was left standing, and only a couple still breathing or even in one piece, while Jake moved unhindered toward the front doors and broke them open with one good smack of his armored tail, the hard wood splintering spectacularly.

Malin strolled casually up behind the serpent, a unique weapon of his own in hand which he aimed at another guard that came rushing around the side of the building. A flash of searing energy came from the thin metallic prongs at the tip, racing across the lawn, and seconds later that guard, too, was incapacitated for worse.

Malin smirked and stepped toward the splintered front doors, stepping through and sauntering nonchalantly through the hall as a shadowy presence joined him and Jake, racing ahead into the building.

Seconds later Malin got the call from Pitch: “Upstairs, oval office.” There was a screech and a pained yell, followed by the radio spitting out, “Guards are no longer an issue either.”

“Be there momentarily,” Malin returned. He strolled up the stairs, giving Jake the order to guard the building as he marched almost jovially down the hall, practically skipping as he pushed open the doors of the Oval Office dramatically.

The scene before him was invigorating: a trio of guards lay on the floor, wounds from the barbed tails of a pair of Bioraptors quickly bleeding out, and Pitch stood near the window, a slick black dagger held to the head of the President of the United States of America.

“A Mr. President,” Malin greeted tauntingly, using a tone as if he were meeting an old friend. “So nice to have the honor of meeting you in person after all this time, and I must thank you for clearing up your very busy schedule for this meeting. I do hope we can get past the rather blunt entrance and focus on the business at hand.”

“You have just committed dozens of felonies in the past three minutes, not the least of which including federal treason,” the president growled back, trying not to flinch outwardly at the blade that hovered by his temple. “You can forget any opportunity to escape this with a pardon.”

Malin only chuckled, and gestured to Pitch. “Go patrol the house, maybe find a hostage or two will you? I think I have it in here now.” Pitch nodded, blade disappearing before he vanished into the wall, leaving the Bioraptors at the door however as guards.

Malin turned back to the president, smile still nonchalant as if he were in the middle of a picnic conversation. “I committed federal treason years ago when I took a boy who could turn into a flying reptile in order to source his power, so that I could confront this incredibly faulty government and perhaps make some headway. We are far beyond that point now, you see, as I’ve learned that there is no means by which you can fix everything on your own.” He held his hand to the chair behind the desk as he took a seat in one across from the president. “Please, take a seat, as this may be a while.”

“I think I will stand,” the president quipped back. Malin shrugged and leaned into his chair, folding his hands. “Very well, I won’t force you. Besides, I’ve got just about everything else in my hands anyway; you’ll be on your knees before long.”

* * *

“You won’t need a tracker this time around,” Zipeau said as I stepped out of my room and into the hallway. “I’ve just received a notification from the air base: an attack just occurred in D.C., and a cloaked jet just dropped several passengers into the White House. They’re fairly certain it’s Malin.”

I nodded. “Right, like it would be anyone else. Get to the village, help Hiccup and Stoick finalize anything they need. Amethyst, Delta, Shadow! We need to go, now!”

“Got it!” came the Night Fury’s reply, the dragon shooting straight up the stairs with the two raptors shrunken down and clinging to her back. Kingsley was already wrapped around my neck, so the five of us bolted out the back door and into the portal. Ember and Orha were waiting already, luckily, so I nodded and we all stepped back into my yard, linking up together as I morphed Lightning Blazer and charged up.

“We’ll have to make a side-stop so that I can stay energized the whole way,” I said as we bolted into the sky, “but Malin just made a move on D.C., so we know where we’re going this time.”

“Anything in particular we should expect?” Ember asked.

I shrugged. “Hostage rescue, securing of the building, and kicking Malin’s rear from here to Cambodia should cover it.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem then.”

A late-season storm had built up over Missouri, allowing us to fly straight through, and a mere half-hour after we’d left my town, we approached the outskirts of the nation’s capital. Here, I slowed and exited the electric state, releasing Orha and Amethyst to fly on their own as I morphed. Ember fixed me with an odd expression as I grew in size, feathers covering my form.

“Uh, shouldn’t we be doing this a little more covertly?” she queried.

I shook my head. “That’s the job of you five. Kingsley and I are here to give a warning first and foremost.”

To prove my point, I turned my head and let out a powerful eagle-like shriek, flaring my wings wide as I completed my change to full-sized Thunderbird.

* * *

“You tell me one more time how to do my job and I don’t care if you’re Malin’s right hand, I will find a way to send you to the pit myself!” Jake snarled, squeezing tighter down on the guard he’d captured as he glared a hole through Pitch. “Last I heard he told you te take care of the house itself, not the grounds around it! That’s my position!”

Pitch snorted as he turned fluidly away. “Curb your temper Jake,” he toned. “I am just here to inform you of what Malin said. He’s the one with an issue with your techniques, not me; I couldn’t care less.”

“It also shouldn’t matter so long as it’s completed to the result he’s looking for,” the rattler growled, turning his fiery eyes to the guard in his coils.

Pitch nodded, clearly understanding that he wouldn’t be getting any further with this argument, and turned away, vanishing back into the shadows of the White House walls. “Fine,” he said as he disappeared, “You can deal with him if he’s displeased later.”

Jake snorted, before fixing a firm glare on his captive. “I will give you the option of doing this the easy way or the hard way,” the snake hissed, loosening his grip only enough so that the man could speak. “Either you inform me of what forces we can expect will try to rescue the president so that I know how many bullets I’m gonna need, or you can stay silent and I’ll just shoot you here and now.” Jake lowered his head down inches from the guard’s face. “Which option do you choose?”

The guard was silent for a moment, eyes flickering wildly around both in hopes of a rescue and trying to become coherent enough to answer.

“Special forces,” he finally blurted in a panic. “The Secret Service, extraction teams, the lot! I’m just a standby position, they don’t tell me anything!”

When Jake shifted the man shut his eyes, tears falling as he braced himself for what he thought would no doubt be his imminent demise.

He gasped in shock and his eyes snapped open when he was suddenly dropped to the ground, still in one piece and free of his former prison of scales. Slowly, he pushed himself up to his knees and glanced up warily at Jake, who curled his lip.

“Useless,” the snake muttered. “Get out of here, before I change my mind.”

The guard quickly nodded, recognizing his chance and scrambling to his feet as he bolted for the nearest exit off the premises. Jake huffed in annoyance again and glanced down at his gun, half wondering if he should try target practice on the rapidly retreating form just because.

A sound like distant thunder caught the snake’s attention; though there were clouds in the distance, there was nothing big enough in sight to produce lightning, so in Jake’s mind that left one possibility: Hawken. He smiled at the thought; no surprise that this little endeavor would attract him.

The smirk rapidly disappeared only a moment later however, when a sound that struck the primal instincts of the rattlesnake ripped across the sky: a loud shriek like that of a great bird of prey. Jake’s eyes widened further in terror as he craned his head upward, spotting a massive silhouette against the gathering clouds bearing great feathered wings and a fan-like tail.

“Hawk!” he whispered irrationally, coiling in on himself.

The silhouette turned, diving toward Jake, who immediately panicked and raced to hide under an overhanging balcony, flattening himself into the wall as the sound of wind rushing over sculpted feathers neared. A shadow crossed the lawn nearby as the figure flew low above the green, and something dropped to the ground unnoticed by the diamondback.

The feathered creature continued to fly past however, not stopping for even a moment, and for a split second Jake noticed the presence of four legs on what he would later realize was a massive form of Griffin.

Right at that moment however he did not gain opportunity to process this detail, as the figure that had dropped from the Griffin now raced in a blur toward him, slamming into the rattlesnake with incredible force and throwing him completely clear of the side of the building.

Only when thin, powerful coils whipped around his neck and tail, binding him rapidly to immobility, did Jake gain the opportunity to get a glimpse of what had caught him so off guard. The sight was not comforting when his rattled mind (no pun intended) pieced together what little he knew of this species, and more in particular who this specimen was associated with.

“I’ll call it wise of you not to move or try anything funny,” Kingsley hissed, all thirty feet of him tightening down on Jake as his Myscale dorsal covering flexed in concert with his movements. The cobra’s head moved forward to look Jake in the eye, hood flaring and showing the clearly expert craftsmanship of whoever had made the snake’s armor.

Kingsley cocked his head when Jake didn’t say anything for a moment, choosing instead to obey the smaller, but clearly more flexible reptile’s command. “I’m surprised, you’re not making as much of a struggle as I had expected,” he mused, tongue flickering. “Smart in the end, but…”

“I’m gonna take a guess as well and say you’re one of the new folk related to the dragon boy,” Jake wheezed snappily. “And you’re a king cobra. Whatever venom you have is worse than mine, and designed to kill snakes.” The rattlesnake attempted to crane his neck to look around, but found Kingsley to be far stronger than he looked. “And…I need te talk to Hawken, so your not killing me at the moment would be greatly appreciated.”

The cobra huffed, eyes narrowing as his hood widened further. “Oh? What makes you think we’re willing to talk to you?”

“Because,” Jake sighed, the fight in his eyes dying back a bit as he mustered up the courage to say his piece, “because I have little interest in working for Malin any longer.”

* * *

Jake’s reaction to my appearance played out exactly as I had hoped, and after Kingsley had disembarked I swept upward and signaled Amethyst. Ember and Orha had already headed straight in the front door, while I intended to enter as a Shadow and hopefully take Pitch out of the equation before I called the Night Fury and raptors in after me. Sweeping around the side of the White House, I morphed again and dissolved, slipping into the walls with nary a sound.

Seconds later, I’d located the president and Malin, and attracted Pitch’s attention.

“How the hell did you get in here?!” he growled, swinging a dark matter blade as I parried with one of my own, before I swept my tail around and knocked him off his feet.

“Same way you did I am sure,” I snapped back. “And I’ve got a surprise for you, Shadow Master.” I grinned and flared my wings, drawing in energy for a special attack.

You see, the fun part is that the name Shadow Dragon is a slight misnomer. While indeed, normally it appears as if the species travels through darkness, and manipulates shadows and dark matter, what many miss is that shadows themselves are nonexistent (and dark matter comes in many forms). Rather, they are simply the absence of a substance that is far, far more potent: light.

As Pitch put himself “upright” (as much as that word can apply in a technically nonexistent dimension), I released the true power that I wielded for the first time: our surroundings came alive, exploding with blinding brightness and making the nightmare king cringe and fall back into the physical world in his stupor, where the flood of light had also made the two occupants of the Oval Office stumble blindly in shock.

I quickly rematerialized and morphed again, taking advantage of Pitch’s temporary disorientation and slamming a razor-taloned paw into his head, knocking him against the near wall and out, leaving four long slashes across his forehead as I did so.

“You’re up, Amethyst!” I called, speaking into my com as I turned to face the two people in the room, my tail whipping out and catching a Bioraptor that leapt toward me, impaling it on the spines that erupted suddenly from my scales.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t roast you alive right here and now,” I snapped at Malin, prowling up to tower over him. “And forget using the president as a shield; I can move a whole lot faster than you and there are a thousand different means to kill you without ever risking a hair on his head. The dead men on the floor over there make me think he’ll probably agree with my actions as well.”

Malin only laughed and twirled the weapon in his hands, one that once again looked chillingly familiar to my eyes. “Oh I’m sure,” he trilled. “I’m guessing that if I fired this right now you would just take the energy and throw it back at me too. But even if you managed to kill me, the chain of events has already been set off; as much as your leader here appears to stand against me despite my best wishes and any offers I try to give, the end result will be the same.”

He turned his head and quirked an eyebrow however as Amethyst padded in through the door behind me, flanked by two creatures that Malin clearly was not expecting: the raptors he had made to try and kill us (or at least Hiccup and Astrid). He ignored the sudden intrusion presently though and pointed his weapon to the map of the United States that lay on the desk still between us.

“Whether I am there or not, within two weeks you can be certain the attacks will begin,” he warned. “No matter what you prepare, the United States of America will fall, and following it will be the European nations, and then Israel; the economy of the world will crumble therein. If you kill me something even worse will be released because then I won’t have to bother trying to win over the world. Seeing as there’s no means in hell you can make me tell you what that would be, do you really want to take that chance either?”

Malin grinned and spread his hands, probably feeling like his chess game was winning a point or two. “I won’t wait forever for an answer either, and Pitch won’t stay unconscious forever; you won’t kill him while he lies defenseless, I know that much about your soft heart.”

“No, but the second he moves I’ll put my talon through him,” Delta snapped, stepping toward the black figure slumped against the wall and placing one foot over his chest. “We have a bargaining chip as well.”

I snorted, turning back to Malin. “You know, funny thing we found out when you threw Hiccup and Astrid on that island,” I drawled, “your tricks are not impervious to morality or outside influence. This is Delta and Shadow, two of several Metaraptors who came back with us. They’re not too happy with what you brought them to life for.”

I snaked my head forward, jaws snapping shut as I cut Malin off from his access to the president and bared my teeth. “And, I agree with them,” I continued, eyes darkening. “I also think you’ve overstayed your own welcome here.”

A gunshot went off, the sound startling all of us, and a flash emanated from the air around Malin as the bullet ricocheted off the barrier field he had been wearing. I had not been expecting the president to take advantage of my hiding him from Malin’s eyes and go on the offensive, and so I didn’t react in time when the bullet whizzed around the room. It pierced my shoulder, making me involuntarily leap back as the sting of pain raced out from that spot.

Malin took his chance when it presented itself, leaping toward the window with Pitch suddenly up and right behind him. He apparently had not been as out of it as we thought, shoving Delta away with ease and dashing from his position to cover his boss.

I snarled in anger and pulled the bullet out of my shoulder before jumping out the window as well, healing the wound as I went and flaring my wings as I touched down on the grass below.

“Jake! We’re leaving!” I heard Malin yell, and I turned in the direction of his voice. We all skidded to a halt however when the rattlesnake slithered out into view next to Kingsley, both of them with matching, withering glares focused on Malin.

“I ain’t leaving with you again,” the diamondback growled, leveling his gun at the man. “This escapade of yours is as foolish has all get out, and for once I’d like te be on the receivin’ end of something other than abject and unquestioning hatred!”

Hiccup and Astrid had been right in their claim: they’d gotten to Jake somehow, and he’d clearly had, if not a change of heart, then a change of motive. With Malin distracted by the sudden and unexpected proclamation I made a split-second decision, knowing what would occur next would proceed very, very rapidly. My scales switched to the opposite end of the spectrum as ethereal fire wafted between my lips, spiraling and pulling in energy as I readied myself.

Malin fell out of his surprise and shook his head, scowling. “So you’re turning against me,” he said lowly. “A pity, Jake, as you had so much potential. You realize that I control your life and that if you don’t work for me I have no reason to keep you alive, yes?”

“Better dead than blindly following the delusional,” Jake snapped back.

Malin glanced at Pitch, and smiled. “Very well then. Pitch, remember this so you can pass it on to the others: this is what happens to those who think they can turn against me,” he sneered, and casually waved his hand.

Jake screamed out in sudden agony as he began to dissolve, skin and scales crinkling inward on themselves and fading to nothing all along his body as the source of his existence was pulled away bit by bit.

I reacted as well, roaring as my wings flared and sending the energized sphere of fire into the chest of the fading rattlesnake. The result was instantaneous: a surge of light rushed over what was left of Jake and what had disappeared from him began to knit together again, weaving his form back into existence as he was strengthened and renewed, his ties to Malin’s power severed like sewing thread. I wavered however from the sudden loss of strength myself, stumbling for a second before I caught myself, barely standing upright.

Seconds later, it was over, and Jake looked over himself, eyes widening in surprise and relief, before they narrowed and he focused on Malin again. “Looks like the hand you were dealt wasn’t so triumphant after all,” he hissed, tail vibrating into a loud staccato buzz as he launched himself forward.

Malin swung the weapon he still gripped forward on instinct and fired, searing plasma splitting the air. While it did little to Jake himself, whose scales were hard enough to resist the attack, the force of the blast slowed him long enough for Pitch to grab hold of Malin and shroud them both in a curtain of anthracite sand. A breath of time later the wall dropped, and they were gone.

“Damn it, should have killed him when I had the chance!” Jake yelled, skidding to a halt where the pair had vanished.

“Had you done so, there would have been a good chance you would have disappeared then and there like you were just about to,” I said quietly, leaning against Kingsley in exhaustion as he slithered up next to me in support, waiting for me to demorph. “Don’t worry though, if you want to get back at him I’m sure we’ll be seeing his face soon enough. Welcome to the team, by the way.”

Jake smirked, turning to look at me directly before finally noticing the state I was suddenly in: practically slumped against Kingsley, the last of my wings sagging as they faded and my eyes half open. “Alright, what just happened to you?” he queried with some masked concern.

“Side effect of cutting Malin’s hold and turning you into a Descendant,” I replied. “It’s the only way thus far that I’ve figured out how to let you continue living here, but it’s very draining.”

Jake nodded, huffing in response. “Good thing then that Malin didn’t notice.”

“Yeah, well, at least this round it’s not taking so much that I passed out like usual,” I returned, slowly starting to gain my breath again. “Apparently one at a time feels more like having done a marathon flight around the earth. Which, right now it’s a really good thing I’m still awake since we still have a major issue to wrap up.” I glanced back up toward the broken window of the White House Oval Office, and the others nearby followed my gaze.

“Yeah, right, the president,” Kingsley muttered. “This isn’t going to go over too well at all, I get the feeling. You know we’re going to have armed forces here out the wazoo very shortly, right?”

“Then better get things settled sooner rather than later,” Jake quipped. “After all, a few minutes ago I was one of their targets, and I know people don’t tend to let things slide when there’s trouble this big, any more than I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like Jake too much to just leave him a temporary pawn on the wrong side...more fun to now pit the vengeful viper against his original maker.


	26. Top Line Troubles

_“Ye never fully escape the mistakes you once made, but makin’ filibusters te soften the blow is pretty easy. Problem is, appealing te the court tends to involve going straight to the judge, and when you managed to do everything you possibly could already te piss him off, excuses don’t carry all the time. That’s what havin’ friends comes in handy fer; they’ll do the talking for ya.”_

_~Rattlesnake Jake_

“Yes, I understand that he was working with Malin just prior to this, but you can trust me at least, I hope, when I say that the rattlesnake will not be a problem any longer.”

“He shot over a dozen guards and Secret Service men,” the president deadpanned back, glaring at the now far smaller western diamondback that lay coiled next to me (Kingsley had informed the new recruit about how to access that seemingly-universal ability the Descendants had). “No matter whether he’s playing for our side or not now, that is something he will have to still answer to.”

I sighed. “Look, I don’t want to waste time arguing over this; bottom line is that I will defend Jake now if need be, something that at least physically no one’s going to win against me in, and if you want him to answer for his crimes, let him do so by making up for what he did. Throwing him in a cell is not going to be of benefit to anyone, least of all us. Additionally, I took care of the men that were still alive; they’re down in the medical room right now. Those who weren’t alive anymore were not killed directly by him either, as Jake does not have energy weapons.” I glanced over my shoulder to look at the other occupants of the room. “ _And_ , do I have to point out again that the two raptors standing not ten feet away also started out as one of Malin’s tricks? Have they provided any evidence to you that they are going to be of issue?”

The president sighed and sat down, still clearly trying to wrap his head around several facts at once that contradicted what he was used to as reality: he was arguing with the dragon man over a talking rattlesnake while a thirty-foot cobra, two Metaraptors, and a Night Fury guarded the Oval Office doors, all after having been held at gunpoint for quite some time by a megalomaniac who had managed to rig the entire capital with small bombs and a militia that had disappeared as quickly as he had. This didn’t even include the characters he’d heard me talk to through the com set who were also patrolling on the grounds under cloak.

“Alright, alright, I’ll set this aside for the time being,” he finally conceded, “if, that is, you think you can explain exactly what Malin’s intentions are, and what we have to work with. Nearly eight years in office, and I’ve never been hit with a situation like this.”

I snorted. “On the other hand, I’ve had events like this play out several times over the past few years. Jonathan Malin is a megalomaniac of sorts, though I’m sure you’ve figured that much out. He has two motives currently: the first is to get rid of me and my friends which he knows is only possible in the midst of an all-out war, one that could easily cripple a nation, if not the entire hemisphere. That, in turn, ties into his second aim: if he cripples the United States he’s completed step one in destabilizing the rest of the world, and he wants, not so much to run it his own way, but send it into chaos for the one he’s working for, ignoring all manner of the diversity of cultures and viewpoints that could crumble.”

“And who is he working for?”

“If I told you he worked for Satan, you would probably take me as insane, but that’s basically the gist of it.”

“The man is destroying the world for the devil.”

“Actually, is it so much to take in considering you’re talking to one of several people supernaturally gifted to protect two separate worlds?”

The president decided to let it go at that. “And what does he have behind him in order to accomplish something as monumental as that?” he asked.

I gestured to Jake again. “Case in point, he has the power to bring humanity’s imagination to life, and not just the characters but the weapons and devices, objects, anything else that may be involved in fantasy. That’s why he was holding a Chitauri energy spear when he was in here and wearing a barrier field that did not operate like the ones I can create.” I walked over to the window and looked out at the smoke still rising in the distance, throughout the city. “Plus, he needs a lot of trained support to be able to set up the attacks he did today, and others like them. Malin has probably gathered an army of like-minded individuals, or at least those foolish enough to get wrapped up in the wrong side, and he will not hesitate to release it all on us once he feels he’s in position.”

Suddenly, the feed to my com buzzed to life. “Hawken? Hawken, come in, you’ve got company headed your way,” Ember’s voice spoke up. I twitched an eyebrow and turned on my relay (I’d kept the set materialized on my head so it didn’t look like I was just talking to air in front of the president) and replied.

“Have they seen you or Orha? Who is it, can you tell?”

“No, we’re hidden, but I think they can hear me. It’s a military defense squadron, Marines I think.”

I sighed and tilted my head toward Amethyst, who also had a com attached to her armor, and she and the others moved to stand next to me, facing the open door of the office. As we’d been alerted, moments later a half-dozen fully armed operatives came bursting in through the door, semi-automatic rifles leveled at our heads.

“Freeze!” the lead soldier yelled. “Put your –uh, put your hands in the air, and drop any weapons!”

I rubbed my forehead, knowing this was not going to turn out well. Illegal as it was, I could not just drop everything and surrender at the moment. “Look, I know this is technically breaking the law, but no can do my friends,” I replied tiredly. “Most of our weapons can’t be dropped per se, and we’re entering the head of a war that I can’t waste time being detained for.”

“I will have no choice but to take action if you don’t comply,” the soldier responded, cocking the rifle. “Let the president go and get on the ground!”

I turned my head, deadpan expression chiseled on. “Mr. President, care to inform them of the current situation? You don’t speak and this is going to get a whole lot worse, and not for me.”

He nodded and moved to stand in front of us, hands clasped behind his back in an almost cordial pose. “Stand down,” he ordered. “These are all friends, and I am no longer in any danger. Do not restrict us now as this is a matter concerning national security, possibly world security.”

“I’m sorry, but I have been given direct orders to bring Hawken Carlton and his friends in under arrest,” the soldier replied curtly, not wavering in his aim. “He has broken international travel laws recently, making an unauthorized landing on an island owned privately by the Costa Rican government only two days ago, and was not cleared for access on those grounds.”

“It was an attempt to rescue two members of my extended family who don’t even come from this world, let alone have to worry about international politics,” I quipped, “and it ended up a rescue for a family on travel for research there as well; has no one informed you of the events that have occurred on that island?” I smirked now. “And forgive my being blunt, but not only did you just ignore an order from the Commander in Chief, but trying to arrest me will not go your way, I will warn you now. There isn’t a container on this planet that could possibly hold me, let alone any capture method that would be successful. I am fighting a war that encompasses two earths, so this is well beyond even international jurisdiction that would normally oversee infractions of this sort.”

My rant served mostly to incense the soldier something fierce. “Alright, you little-!”

“Enough!” the president snapped. “Hawken is right, our common threat takes precedence over an infraction that of all things was meant for the saving of lives. Mark my words, if I have to I will authorize a full presidential pardon for Hawken and all of his allies for any actions they may have made and grant them immunity if that doesn’t deter you, and I will argue point with every member of the other governing branches if need be.” He looked at me sternly. “If what you say of Malin is true then you are about the only ones with any chance of actually assisting us in thwarting this; he is crazy, but he won’t stand where we have a clear shot at him.”

There was a tense moment where none of the operatives moved, before a new sigh emanated from just outside the door. Ember marched in a second later, eyes and hair blazing and Orha glaring through the doorway at the newcomers from behind her. “Alright people, clear out before I take the guns myself, melt them down for scrap, and kick you out the door!” the fiery woman announced, walking up to the nearest soldier and glaring him straight in the eyes, her skin radiating enough heat to make the man wince and lean back as far as he physically could.

“I said move it!” she growled again. “And if you shoot me it will be your funeral; bullets won’t faze Myscale.”

They appeared to finally get the point, and I made a silent note to myself: Marines under orders would stand up to two raptors, a Night Fury, a pair of size-changing venomous snakes, the dragon morpher, _and_ the President, but apparently a Shadowracer and a girl with a no-nonsense attitude and burning hair was what it took to push the limit. Guns were lowered or set down on the floor outside the office, and they scrambled out the door.

Delta caught the vest of the last one through however, and held him back. “Call whoever’s in charge of your platoon and send them up here,” she growled, before letting him go. Turning to find our questioning glances, she casually replied, “National military beyond you, Mr. President, probably wants to be directly involved in the defense of this country; someone with a higher clearance is probably better though.”

I nodded before swiveling to face the president once more. “Alright, then let’s at least start figuring this out. First off, Malin was here for at least a good twenty minutes before we even got here; what demands or threats did he try to make?”

“Agreement to assist in military silencing or enforcement under his directive, overturning the US economy, and basically everything your classic megalomaniac has in mind for taking over a country,” he replied, before pursing his lips in thought. “Now that I actually sum it up in so few words, it sounds more clinically insane than how he worded it.”

“That’s Malin for you,” I snarked.

“In any case,” he continued, “he did hint multiple times at the capability of repressing our forces whether or not we did cooperate, however.”

“I don’t doubt that he does indeed have the capacity to do so if we don’t work together,” Ember said. “Whoever he was working with managed to keep military forces off the White House grounds here up until we actually showed up.”

We all paused to regard a new character whom I assumed was the military supervisor that walked into the office uncomfortably, and clearly irritated that events were not going as he had instructed. I smirked at the sight, before gesturing to the map of the US, which was now a little more than battered on the wall.

“Wherever Malin has stationed his army, I doubt it will be solely in the US,” I mused. “He wouldn’t be able to hide away any large force here and continue to prepare unnoticed, not one big enough to even threaten Berk properly at least.”

“Berk?” the president questioned curiously.

I sighed. “What, you never watched How to Train Your Dragon? Like has been mentioned I am part of two worlds; it just so happens the other one was the setting for that storyline, among others. Anyway, speaking of Berk, we all need to get back, and figure out how we can transport our warriors to wherever Malin intends to attack. I can bet it will be a major city, probably coastal.” I glanced over at the military officer. “Work with him; I’m sure the CO Air National Guard can be contacted by them to stay in touch with me. We need to prepare, and I cannot do that properly in this office.”

The president nodded. “I agree. Go, and you can be certain we will be in contact very shortly.” He glanced at the officer as well, and waved him closer. “In the meantime…you, over here. We have work to do, including paperwork for the incident here as they’ll never let any of it go until we do.”

* * *

The trip home took far longer than the flight to D.C. (there were no storms to charge up with), but all of us wasted no time in heading to the village when we returned. I headed straight to the Great Hall with Jake and Ember in tow, pushing the doors open and walking in.

To my relief, Fishlegs had done exactly as I’d asked and contacted the Asgardians, who were collected around the fire pit with Stoick, Valka, Hiccup, and several of the other villagers and teens. They all glanced up with urgent expressions as I approached, though their line of thought clearly stalled out when they caught sight of Jake.

“Good news,” I announced, “we have another ally. Rattlesnake Jake is on our team now, and he might have some useful knowledge about Malin’s intentions.”

“Bad news,” Jake drawled without missing a beat, “Malin isn’t dead, and you know as well as I do he’s got formidable forces holed up somewhere he failed to tell even me about.”

“Well, nice to see our conversations had an effect,” Hiccup said brightly, nodding to Jake who merely tilted his head in response. “We have some good news too however. Aurianna?”

The “young” looking woman nodded and reached behind her, pulling off a pack bulging with what I could only assume were more modified stones. As she did, I noticed Jordan was wrapped around her arm, and a fair bit smaller than I remembered him being.

Aurianna noticed the focus of my confused expression, and smiled. “Got the idea from your ‘Descendants’,” she explained. “It is most convenient that he turned out to have a similar capacity as they, and it certainly makes for easier travel.”

“Though perhaps a bit demeaning when you make to wear me like an arm brace,” the Oceanguard muttered, though smirking nevertheless.

Aurianna chuckled. “Consider it payback for the soaked outfits and teasing all those years ago. However, to present matters: Heimdall received a vision around a month and a half ago, about the same time as we have been told Ember experienced an incident here. I have been working on these ever since under the precaution that we might be called, and should have enough to outfit several hundred warriors.” She pulled a small, reddish stone inset in a mount of Mysteel out of the pack she held, and immediately I recognized the design.

“Barrier gems?” I queried quietly.

She nodded. “Yes. They can simply be inserted on any open space in the suits I know you have all made, and pressed to activate; I don’t know how long they can last, especially under duress, but I’ve kept one running for over a week without pause before I turned it off.” Aurianna set it on the edge of the fire pit, and her smile widened. “I was also informed by Zipeau, before you arrived back here, that many of you are now using a communications system that I may be able to assist in as well.” This time she opened a pocket on the vest she wore, and pulled out what looked like a small opal. “I have yet to make very many, because it takes a great deal of concentration to get it right, but it is otherwise not difficult. Mount this to your headsets and you can mentally operate it, address only the people that you need to and control influx of conversation as well. It’s a more advanced version of what Jezebel once used to direct her fleets, and considering what we seem to be facing, I thought such a system could be invaluable.”

For the first time in days a proper, full smile graced my expression. “This is honestly the best news I’ve heard all week,” I exulted. “Alright, you’ll need to work together with Hiccup and Zipeau in order to put everything together then. In the meantime, I need to talk with Odin about an issue concerning portals.”

“Portals? Needing to get somewhere faster than you already do?” Hiccup asked curiously.

“Sort of,” I replied. “Actually, I need to get the entire village somewhere really fast; Malin will probably attack the States directly in a couple of weeks or less and we need to be able to be wherever he does so. The Vikings and dragons of the archipelago are the most well-armed and experienced fighters I know of, so we will be needed to win this. Not to mention, I doubt Malin will leave Berk alone if he manages to shut down my country.”

I turned and gestured to Odin for him to follow me, and turned to head out the doors again. Freyja, Loki, and Thor decided to tag along as well apparently trailing behind us. Heading outside, we trekked through the forest to the portal, and I stopped just in front of it and looked to Odin.

“You are the only one I know of who can construct a way for hundreds of people, or very large dragons for that matter, to be transported any major distance in a decent time,” I said. “I don’t know how your gift works, so I brought you to the entrance to my world to see if you can help us.” I nodded to the glowing rift in the air ahead of us, and stepped aside as Odin moved forward, reaching his hand through the anomaly.

Almost immediately, he smiled with pleasant surprise and looked at me. “Well, this is quite an interesting development,” he mused.

I cocked an eyebrow. “What is?”

“It’s…what would be the easiest way to explain this? It’s a biogeographic portal; that’s not very useful for what you wish me to do, but you control this portal. It’s tied to where you live, so if you move somewhere for any great length of time it will likely relocate with you, or you can open it yourself elsewhere in this world and the other entrance will stay locked at your current home, or vice versa.” He nodded. “Very interesting indeed; I’ve only seen this once before. You have a shortcut if necessary for returning to Berk from anywhere in your world, or to your home from anywhere in this world.”

Odin shook his head to return to our focus and stepped through the portal. I had locked the dogs inside earlier to be safe, so no barking fuzzballs came to interrupt us luckily.

“Now, to focus on this task,” Odin said, “I have not been on another world before so I do not know my capacity to span between them. I must conduct a test in order to attempt traveling to other locations on this earth.” We moved to the middle of the yard, and Odin closed his eyes for a moment, seeming to search for something, before waving his hand through the air.

Having only seen it a couple of occasions previously, I still jerked in surprise as the portal ripped open in front of us, expanding in size until it was large enough for us to step through. Then, Odin smirked and gestured to Thor.

“Care to see which world this ended up on, son?” he said lightly.

Thor blanched, before being pushed forward by his brother. “Come on, Thor,” Loki taunted, “you can’t weasel out now. Besides, you can always just come right back through if need be.”

Count on sibling rivalries to get the undecided to move. Thor furrowed his brow and squared his shoulders as he sent a glare toward his brother, and then after a moment of steeling himself he stepped through the portal.

A handful of tense seconds passed, before something appeared. It was not Thor, however, but instead Fenrir’s head poked through the portal, the wolf smiling in amusement. “Whatever you were trying to do, it seems to have worked,” he mused, glancing around my yard. “What a curious place.”

I chuckled at that and looked to Odin, who nodded in satisfaction. “Now that we have confirmed this works,” he said, “and I believe I have my bearings on this world, where must we head to?”

“Well, hold on a minute,” I cautioned. “We should help Aurianna get her devices set up before we go anywhere, and we need to call in the other allied tribes as well. Once they’re here then we can move out.”

Odin dipped his head in understanding and with a gesture for Loki and Freyja to follow him, stepped through the portal into what I assumed was the Great Hall, where the others had stayed. I, meanwhile, turned and pulled out my phone, dialing a number and holding it up to my ear. After a handful of rings, I got an answer.

“Hello?”

“Hey Sarah. Uh, sorry for the short notice, but we’re about to be thrown into a major conflict involving both worlds, and I could use every strategic mind I can get, especially someone familiar with this earth.”

Silence passed for a moment, before, “I can probably be there in twenty minutes, though you know my parents are not going to be happy.”

“Great, I’ve got an explanation for them already. We’ll get an armor set ready for you just in case as well.”

“….This is really serious, isn’t it?”

“You heard about the school attacks, right?”

“Yeah. So very serious.”


	27. Prior to War

_“The worst part about conflict is not always the fighting; it’s the waiting. It’s that time when you know something’s coming, and you know it’s going to be bad, but you can’t predict how bad, or when, and you aren’t in control of any of the events to come. It’s that time when all the little things like to go wrong, driving morale down. It’s that time when I need the most support from my brothers, and they from me, because it’s a mental battle then, and those are the kinds that really kill.”_

_~Toothless_

“300 ships deployed, ready to cross the channel and all fully equipped with personnel armed to the designated standards,” the lieutenant reported, fidgeting under the gaze of the figures he was answering to.

Malin snorted and glanced out the window of the tower he sat in, an unsightly but functionally designed metal monolith that overlooked the sheltered harbor below. He’d implicated the same technology the quinjets possessed into an energy field, hiding the base from satellite tracking; though they sat on the coast of Africa, directly across the Atlantic from America, he was essentially invisible until he made his move.

“If everything is on track, we will move out this afternoon,” he decided. “Pass the word on: everyone on the ships in half an hour, or I will let Pitch release his nightmares on whoever lagged behind.” He turned to regard a new face to his other side. “You are dismissed, lieutenant. Shen, I hope you are prepared to take on the reptiles; are your forces ready as promised?”

The figure Malin spoke to shifted, the sound of feathers ruffling as his head cocked slightly to the side, and a narrow crest rose while he admired the dagger held in his wing. “Most certainly, Malin,” Shen answered. “This alloy should hold up well enough to their weapons; it should not be difficult, and my troops are prepared.” As if to prove his point, Shen whipped his wing around and back, sending the feather-etched blade straight through the steel wall of the tower.

“Good,” Malin answered. “Head down and get them in line, on board the ships. Accommodations are already prepared, and we leave when the last tune-ups are made.”

Only a couple of hours later, Malin and Pitch stood together on the bridge of a vessel in the cove, watching as the energy field above them was shut off, revealing them to the world. Engines rumbled to life and the deck below them lurched forward, the armada dragging a massive wake behind it as it entered the open ocean.

Malin chuckled; it would be a few hours before someone would actually notice their presence and word would spread, but by then they would be hundreds of miles along, and fully prepared to deflect any attacks that might be sent out before they made landfall.

America, in his mind, didn’t stand a chance.

* * *

“I’m only going to say this once, so everyone listen up!” I shouted. “This will be like nothing you have ever experienced before, so if you have questions, save them for later _unless_ it pertains to the present matter or your personal safety! There are several people who will be in charge at all times, and if we give an order, our word is law: me, my father, Stoick, Bertha, Mogadon, and the military supervisor that the base will put in charge of the grounds. If we tell you to do something, you do it unless you are physically unable to; we may have a week at best now before things go to hell so all preparation we can get in, all necessary training, will be priority one. Is this understood?”

A unanimous “Yes sir!” resounded from the audience in front of me (Vikings, dragons, and others).

I nodded, holding back a smirk at the incredibly proper response. “Good. Now, are there any immediate questions that you need answered before we leave?”

One hand shot up, and I immediately grimaced. “Yes, Tuffnut?”

“Yeah, so uh, can you repeat that?” he queried. Luckily his sister clonked him over the head before I could get to him, so instead I clasped my hands and looked to my left. “Alright, Odin, open the portal. Tohar, you head through first, and wait in the river if you will.”

As the air swirled behind us and the portal widened, the Bewilderbeast in question nodded and moved forward, following me through the portal and into my home world. In front of the two of us, and expansive military academy and base ground to a halt as the mountainous dragon appeared, lumbering to the water nearby and slipping in.

The people on the grounds continued to look on in shock as hundreds of Viking warriors, dragons, and several of our friends and family followed behind, marching (or flying, or slithering) in rows out onto the field.

With my mother and Embron’s help, we had set up plans to use the US Military Academy as a base of action, leaving the portal open if needed for emergency (but to be guarded on both sides by Phil and his flock of Terrors as they usually did my portal) so that we could travel back and forth if need arose. With the academy located within a few miles of the East Coast, right near some of the largest metropolises in the US, we had all figured that it would be most likely that Malin would strike along this corridor first.

Until then however, all of Berk, the Bog and Meathead Isles, and even the Peaceables would be taking lessons on operation of modern weapons and strategy. And speaking of strategy…

I glided down and landed next to Heather and my friend Sarah, both decked out in their respective armor suits (though Sarah was only wearing hers to get used to it, as it was unlikely she would have to see a situation where it would be necessary). “Planning will probably occur in that hall there,” I said, pointing toward a nearby building. “Heather, with the experience you and Windshear hold I would like you to keep tabs on the forces Bertha, Thuggory, and Valka will direct at least until things really get hectic; Sarah, I’m entrusting you to the strategies for the raptors, Cami and Astrid, my sister, and the other Descendants along with whatever forces my parents may be paired with.”

I placed my hands on both their shoulders and looked at them sternly. “I know that this is a lot, but you both have given me more than enough reason to trust you with this and I don’t doubt that you two will do so again in this case.”

“We’ll be sure to make things run as smoothly as we can,” Sarah assured, sharing a nodding glance with Heather before they turned to walk off. “But I can’t promise too much with Cami and you know it.”

That was entirely true, and I chuckled despite everything as I turned to locate Hiccup and company, knowing that at the moment both Holly and my parents would be found with them.

Sure enough, as drill sergeants called out orders for the “inexperienced” to line up for practice and basic training (my family and the gang mostly excluded as we had shooting practice on a regular basis, but new as they were the raptors were getting involved), I found them all heading for the edge of the river.

“Everything alright over here?” I asked as I walked up to them.

“Yeah, just going to set up targets for a different kind of practice,” Holly drawled, spinning one of her many throwing knives between her fingers. “The ones they have up for the guns aren’t exactly great for knives, bows, and the like.”

I nodded. “I see. And you’re all thinking that you’ve got enough experience with modern guns and the other artillery?”

“We probably won’t be using that sort of stuff,” Cami replied, twirling one of her swords in a mirror of Holly’s knife as if in emphasis of her statement. “But, with what your parents have taught us, I think that if I pick up a gun I will be able to shoot it.”

“Good to know our outings were well-received then,” my father mused at the half brush-off, though holding a smirk anyway.

I snorted in response. “Hope you can hold to that promise. Well then, I have to talk with the general here and relay progress to the president. I’ll be back when I can.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Cami joked.

“Well, that leaves me with a lot of room to maneuver, doesn’t it?” I shot back, laughing as I spread my wings and took off again.

* * *

Morning came incredibly early as I was called in to a monitor station on urgent news: Malin’s forces had been detected, and his apparent destination, while within our range of predictions, was a bad one.

I landed outside the building and walked in, finding my father, Sarah, Hiccup, and Astrid already gathered around a table and watching the TV screen at the other end of the room. A female reporter’s voice was narrating the footage as they showed the massive fleet crossing the ocean from satellite view.

“…and was detected by satellite surveillance at 2:30 am eastern time. The fleet had been hiding somewhere along the northern coast of Morocco and is currently in transit across the Atlantic at more than 20 miles an hour. Initial counts suggest in excess of 350 warships, armed with dozens of as-yet unidentified weapons. Several anonymous sources have suggested that this may be a joint force of ISIS and an unidentified organization headed by Jonathan C. Malin. Malin disappeared nearly two years ago after his imprisonment for the kidnapping of the famed dragon boy Hawken Carlton, with treasonous intent behind the act.”

The video view switched from the ships to the studio where the reporter sat. Her expression, however calm she was trying to be, was anything but. “If this fleet stays its course it is predicted to make landfall along the coast of the larger New York metropolitan coastline in less than a week. We are waiting on word from the president on what action will be taken against this undeniable act of war, but several witnesses, who once again chose to remain anonymous, have claimed that a counter force is already being gathered on the East Coast, with military recruits being called in from around the country. Word of an entirely foreign ally has also come in, in the form of hundreds of what have been described as both dragons and heavily armored Viking warriors.

“We remain skeptical of this description, but if these reports are to be believed, it may provide possible evidence to support rumors that have appeared of Hawken Carlton somehow being allied with, as incredible as it may sound, Hiccup, Stoick, and the other How to Train Your Dragon characters of Berk. After all this time, we may finally be getting clues as to how the dragon boy managed to gain the abilities he has become so well known for.”

The screen clicked off, switching instead to a still, blurry satellite photo of the supposed fleet as the appointed base commander, General Daniel Rickheimer, stood up from his seat and turned to face the rest of us. “I guess it figures that the news can’t keep focuses on the prospect of war when they have ‘celebrity’ gossip to chat about,” he drawled, “but I think this still highlights perfectly the major concern we have. If Malin is indeed heading for New York then we have two options: try and halt his progress before he manages to reach the coast, or remove the populace.”

“Stopping him will not work, not without knowing intimately the kinds of weapons he has on his side,” Sarah spoke up. “He can also just create new weapons at will so we’ll be continuously on the disadvantageous side of a guessing game, and a good portion of our forces are of very little use in an open-ocean fight unless we actually get them on the ships where they would then be at an even greater risk from both sides attacking.”

“So we’re looking more toward evacuating the coast is what you’re suggesting,” Astrid concluded. Sarah nodded in response, and we all sighed.

“We’re about to try and clear out the most populated city in America,” I muttered warily. “Ugh, send out the alarm now and we should be able to get most of them out in time. Malin will not hesitate to kill civilians either; our first recent encounter with him, he attempted to use a nuclear bomb on the other-world version of Rome as leverage against us. If it means breaking us, he will take that shot again given even a quarter of a chance. I have to say that on that line that it’s of no surprise to me that he’s allied with or even possibly directing ISIS.”

Rickheimer nodded. “Then that settles it. It won’t be pretty, but I’ll contact the Pentagon and tell them it’s advised to issue a national alert, and to evacuate the city and suburbs around it. In the meantime, it was also advised to me that you all are to be included in at least one tactical weapons training session, just so that we can be assured that you can operate the guns should the need arise during the fight.” Glancing at the bow Hiccup had strapped to his back, he added, “Though, from what little I have gathered already we may already be outclassed by what you all have brought along with you.”

The general nodded and clapped his hands together as he glanced around. “Alright, meeting adjourned; I have to go make that call, and the next session starts in about ten minutes or so if you want to get that mess out of the way. Personally, I advise sooner is better.”

We filed out of the room, heading various different directions, me walking next to Hiccup and Sarah. “Well,” I began, “no point in waiting. Everyone else is probably already at the range, so how about we go and join them?”

“Sure, as long as we let the others who were originally exempt know so that they don’t miss it either,” Hiccup advised. I nodded and focused, my com set materializing and flipping on, the new gem from Aurianna already implicated in the design and functioning.

“Hey guys? Base requests at least one demonstration in tactical training and operations from everyone; next session starts pronto, so make sure you’re here. Are we clear?”

Faint background static crackled through for a moment before it cleared and I heard Zipeau reply in. “Feren and I will ensure everyone gets there. Are Ember and Cami included in that?”

“I said everyone, didn’t I?”

“Got it. You woke up on the wrong side of the bunk didn’t you?”

“Gee, what gave it away?”

“I won’t bother counting the ways. We will see you in a few minutes.”

As promised, several minutes later everyone was assembled on the tactical range, each of us looking down at the weapons on the tables assigned to us; most were AR’s, rifles, and some high-power handguns (I personally know very little about gun types, my apologies; that’s my father’s expertise).

I glanced to one side and smirked at what I saw: for some reason, Stoick the Vast with an AK-47 in hand is at once a terribly intimidating and side-splittingly comical image. He noticed my expression and grinned, taking a page out of my own family’s book and striking a pose with the weapon (and sending me into convulsions of laughter) before the drill sergeant barked out a command for our attention.

“Alright, listen up!” he bellowed. “All weapons are to remain in safety position until I say otherwise, barrels pointed downrange at all times! Your targets are numbered with your position; do _not_ attempt to fire at a target if it does not belong to you! You will fire ten rounds and we will measure your accuracy when all participants are complete! If you have questions on how to operate your firearm, _ask me first_ before attempting to figure it out yourself!” He leveled a pointed, drilling glare upon Tuffnut, who smiled sheepishly and tried to make himself look smaller.

“Nearly put a bullet in his foot yesterday,” Ember whispered nearby. I turned to her, noting in passing the upgrades that she, Hiccup, and Zipeau had implemented to her arsenal (instead of one quiver with the Piffleworm arrows she now had three, each with at least a hundred projectiles and the other two housing incendiary arrows Ember could light with her ability as well as explosive tips that detonated on impact) as I rose my brow in disappointed not-quite-surprise. If nothing else, we were all now walking arsenals, and Tuffnut with a gun might have been the worst idea for one on hindsight.

“Atten-tion!” the sergeant yelled again, noting the wandering gazes from a few of us as he cleared the range. “Prepare your firearms!” We each picked up our guns.

“Check for chambered rounds, jammed ammunition, and your sights!”

I pulled the magazine, ensuring there was ammunition within and in good condition before sliding it back in, and opened the barrel; one round chambered, un-jammed. Then I raised the pistol and looked down the muzzle to the target, aligning the sights before placing my finger on the safety switch and waiting for the signal to proceed.

“Safety off!”

Several hundred clicks echoed down the line.

“Ready, aim…”

Hammers cocked and everyone took position.

“…FIRE!!”

The dragons behind us all dropped to the ground and covered their ears (those who hadn’t already learned that guns were loud before at least) as the air reverberated with the barrage that followed. The gun jerked in my hand as the first round went off, before I cocked the slide back and let loose the next, and the next, and so on.

Finally, once we were all through, we waited for the smoke to clear to look at our results. My grouping was decent, if slightly off of center, with every impact within a quarter inch of each other. My father, Ember, and Hiccup and Astrid were all of similar level, their shots more or less directly on center though, and nearby Stoick was just slightly less proficient, but still passing grade. Then we all turned to look down at Holly’s target, and then at her as she leaned against the table in front of her and grinned.

There was a single hole in the sheet, dead center and just over 3 times the width of a single bullet hole. She hadn’t missed her mark with even a single shot.

“Like I said,” she enunciated smugly, “I haven’t missed once in nearly two months now.”

“Well,” Hiccup quipped, drawing our looks of surprise away, “looks like we’re all up to standard –Holly, don’t say a word, we all know you’re past the standard- so shall we continue practicing with our own personal weapons?”

* * *

For a second day in a row, morning came in way too early as I was rudely awakened by my com going off in my head at 6:30 am.

“Hawken, you need to get up!” Hiccup’s voice rang in. “We’ve got a new problem to deal with, pronto!”

I groaned and shifted, tail slipping off the edge of my temporary bed (due to the uncomfortability of the barrack-style bunks we were given to use, I had resorted to sleeping in Night Fury form), before blinking my eyes slowly open and trying to focus enough to use the dematerialized device.

“H-Hiccup? What’s going on? And do you have any idea what time it is?”

“You get up at 6:15 most mornings anyway, what are you complaining about?” Hiccup’s curt remark snapped back. “Get to the briefing room, there’s a huge snafu with the evacuation in New York.”

“What kind of problem?”

“If I’m calling you at this time of morning, does it matter?”

He had a point. I groaned and stood up, crawling off the bed. “Alright, alright, be there shortly.” I turned off the connection and pushed open the door to my temporary (and luckily, private) room, taking in the gray, cloudy atmosphere along the coast before spreading my wings and taking off, gliding over the academy grounds. Very shortly after, I landed in front of the door to the main building, walking in and strolling down the hall to the briefing room.

Hiccup, Astrid, and Ember along with their dragons were, unsurprisingly, there already, and shortly after I arrived Delta, Amethyst, and Jake also showed up, making the narrow room that much more packed as General Rickheimer turned on the TV screen. As soon as he did, my already unstable temper meter swung from an early morning irritated yellow to smack dab in the middle of red.

“CBS News Ryan Laemer reporting,” the brunet man behind the news counter said. “After yesterday’s events revealing a possible imminent attack against the US underway, a national alert was released by the Pentagon, including an executive order for the evacuation of the entire northeastern coastal metropolitan corridor, most notably New York City, New York. Almost immediately, opposition arose to the action, thousands of residents raising protests against leaving their houses only a few years after a similar evacuation event during Hurricane Sandy.”

The screen switched to a camera view of Times Square; thousands of people swarming the streets within, signs waving and angry shouting heard in the background of the video. Almost immediately, I spotted one sign that had a crude cutout of a dragon, bearing a red slash across it, and I realized there was more to this issue than people angry over just the evacuation.

The reporter’s next words confirmed my concerns. “Witness reports also have noted that many of these protestors are angry not so much about the order of evacuation, but the shocking new allies of the military forces being mobilized against the national threat we face. Hundreds of what have now been confirmed to be Vikings and dragons, also confirmed as friends and allies of the famed dragon morpher Hawken Carlton, have gathered in preparation for war, drawing the ire of city residents nearby who claim their presence an abomination. Some pose the dragons and their friends to be demonic, others drawing the blame to them for the possible upcoming attack.”

“So, now we have to go beat some sense into a bunch of blockheads,” Jake muttered, drawing a smirk from me. “Yeah, yeah, I’m aware doing so literally is unwise,” he amended, “but we can’t let those fools continue like this, otherwise not only will they get killed, but they’ll slow us down in the process as well.”

“Gee, now that I think about it, beating them literally sounds more appealing,” Astrid murmured mockingly. Noticing the glare Hiccup was giving her, she held up her hands. “Kidding, alright? Partly at least. But how are we going to go about dealing with this?”

“Dramatic entrance,” I said simply. Almost everyone else nigh immediately leveled me with odd, incredulous looks, but the general nodded.

“Protestors won’t listen to nice and calm,” he said, “and short of physically forcing them out little else is going to get them moving quickly either. I doubt any of them actually understand what we’re dealing with, but if you give them even a hint of what you can do that might get the message across to enough of them to get the whole group moving. Times Square has a platform for events that you can stand on to gain attention; take enough of your friends to be able to control the crowd so that no one leaves to complicate things at a later time.” He glanced at Jake and Amethyst. “And make sure that everyone you take is armed; much as I want to avoid outright violence, there’s no telling what rioters have on them or what they’ll do.”

“Alright, Amethyst and Ember, go gather Thuggory, Camicazi, and the rest of the raptors,” Hiccup ordered, standing up. “I’ll let Snotlout and company know, and Hawken, if you can pick up Kingsley; a couple of armored snakes ought to benefit us for fear factor, much as I hate saying that.”

I nodded. “Got it. Jake, come on; the sooner we take care of this, the better.”

The diamondback snorted and nodded, tail vibrating slightly with irritation. “Agreed.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later the whole of the assembled group was on our way up through the maze of New York buildings (or down, heading more or less south as we were), guided on the coms by Zipeau and Sarah, who could actually see a map to direct us. It was a truly unique experience, what with all of us having been used to only open air or forest; the towering sky scrapers around us were otherworldly to navigate through.

Two blocks away from the square, we landed momentarily to let off the Metaraptors and the two snakes, and Snotlout, Fishlegs, the twins, and Thuggory set off to form a perimeter, before the rest of us flew up and glided out high over the open space of Times Square itself. The crowd below was beyond extensive, filling the streets and overflowing out into the surrounding avenues of the city.

When they spotted us, the reaction was instantaneous, the noise rising by several decibels and the hustle below growing even more chaotic, impossible as that had seemed. Dozens of angered fists and brandished signs rose into the air.

There were several people already attempting to make use of the platform mentioned, clearly having been busy riling up the crowd, and when they saw us dropping in on approach toward where they stood, some of them did the smart thing and leapt off as the four dragon/rider pairs and I touched down.

Three of them though, two dirty blonde-haired women and one red-headed young man, only stepped to the side and turned their burning glares on us directly, me more so when I began demorphing, wide black wings replaced by my flowing black coat edged in blue and silver.

“It would be immensely wise of you to vacate this space at once,” Astrid warned, sliding off of Thorn and spinning her axe menacingly.

The taller blonde protestor scoffed. “Oh? What’re you devils gonna do? You hurt us in any way and it just proves our point.”

“Call us devils again and we might have decent reason to hurt you,” Astrid snapped back. “And getting thrown off here by me is still a lot better than what Malin will do if he gets here and everyone present hasn’t vacated the city. Ever felt what it’s like to have a bullet lodged in your chest?”

The woman paused just long enough for me to move forward, a long tail coiling out and wrapping around all three and hoisting them up. “Next time, be polite and do as you’re asked,” I quipped, before carefully setting them down just off the edge of the platform, despite the severe urge I had to just drop them instead.

Then, I turned to face the rest of the crowd. I didn’t expect the first attempt to work, but I wanted to exhaust other options before resorting to drastic measures.

“Alright, everyone listen up!” I shouted, and just as expected they did not silence in the slightest; instead, the shouting came to be directed entirely to me.

“You don’t have to leave your home!”

“The hell if I’m going to listen to a demon!”

“Crawl back into the hole you came from and let us fight this!”

“You won’t survive five minutes if you stay here!” Orhaganuz roared. “Jonathan Malin will not hold back from killing every single one of you!”

“And who trusts the words of a devil?!” a young raven-haired girl in front of us snapped, causing all our eyes to narrow further.

“I’ll ask you this just once,” Orha growled, “do you know what a devil is? Do you know whom we all actually serve? Do you know how insulting it is to call me that, someone who has had to experience being _forced_ under the control of a sorceress and her demons? Have you EVER taken a moment to _think_ before you speak?!”

“We have fought hand in hand with demons in physical form on several occasions, evil spirits the likes of which you could not possibly even imagine,” Camicazi agreed nearby. “Don’t even _think_ of insulting us by putting us in the same boat as that!”

I growled and sucked in a breath. This crowd wasn’t going to quiet easily, that much was clear from the attitude and insults flying up at us; hopefully something along the lines of supersonic would be enough.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!!!”

My words came out with the power of a Thunderdrum, the very air rippling visibly and causing those nearest to us to drop to the ground and cover their ears. Nearly half the assembly did quiet, but the rest of the crowd however still wouldn’t take the hint.

“Should I fire a warning shot?” I heard Jake ask over the coms.

“Not yet,” I replied. “They fail to heed the next warning, then they more than deserve however we deal with them.”

I gestured for the others to scoot back, and held out my hand, the staff Hiccup had made for me materializing in a rush of sparks. Taking it by the middle, I swung it up above my head and began to spin the rod until it was a blur around my hand, and I lit it up with electricity. Sparks and streamers flashed as the spinning halo formed, a vibrating pulsar of power along the outer rim, and the unusual sight finally started to draw the eyes that I needed. A few more seconds of suspense passed, before I slammed the staff down to the platform, Night Fury tip pointing out and directing a massive fan of electrical energy out over the heads of the protestors.

A Thunderdrum’s roar is loud, truly deafening and in some cases injurious at close range. Blinding light from plasma-turned air searing at over five million degrees Fahrenheit and the resulting crack of thunder within a few feet of one’s head, on the other hand, is like having a bomb going off and having one’s life flash before your eyes; people shut up at that.

The lightning flashed for only a couple of seconds, and the reverberating concussions afterward blew out several nearby car windows before they decreased to a powerful echo that ran between the buildings. Not a word was spoken as all eyes shifted to me, wide in shell-shocked surprise and growing fear. Now, once the thunder died off, you could hear distant car engines again.

“Most of you were foolishly protesting our very existence in the absence of knowing that not only are we God-fearing people, but also what we are capable of,” I spoke aloud, voice carrying easily now in the still air. “That was me, alone, and a minor demonstration at that. _None_ of us have any intention to hurt any of you here, but having to forcibly remove you is better than having thousands of preventable deaths that _will_ happen if you stick around. Jonathan Malin can create weapons, give life to entities with destructive power beyond the level I just showed you, and you _all_ are targets in his eyes.”

I shifted my gaze beyond the crowd, and focused on my com. “Alright guys, show yourselves,” I said. Moments later, ripples began to run through the crowd from people backing away as, on the streets surrounding the square, Jake, Kingsley, the raptors, and the other riders revealed themselves, fully armed and armored and bringing the best no-nonsense expressions they could to bear (which isn’t hard for a reptile).

“This is Rattlesnake Jake, Kingsley the cobra, Delta and the Metaraptors, and the rest of our core riders,” I announced. “They can be friends, but are here to ensure good behavior. It is required of you to evacuate this city in a timely manner so that you are out of danger. If you actually think you are brave enough to stay and fight, then tell me: do you have the skill to fight someone with a capacity to deal destruction on my level, who has _no_ intention of letting you live?”

* * *

It took several hours following to ensure everyone had left the city, including a “quick” once-over of the metropolis to confirm that there weren’t any stragglers. Then, exhausted and needing a rest, we all returned to the academy grounds where Rickheimer was waiting for us with a message. My parents, Sarah, and Heather were standing nearby, the looks on their faces immediately filling me with anxiety.

“Executive orders sent out a small squadron of jets this morning,” Rickheimer explained. “Supposedly they have the mission to assess the tactical power Malin’s fleet possesses, and take any shots they might have”-

“Call them off now!” I barked, causing the general’s eyes to widen in surprise and reprehension.

“Call off? This isn’t supposed to be a major strike, and they’re”-

“Malin will _not_ let them return alive,” Hiccup interrupted this time, slipping off of Toothless’ back. “He’ll try and keep any and all special secrets he has hidden; his repertoire of means to do so will include shooting any scouting forces from our side out of the sky. They will not survive without backup from at least one of us!”

“Like I told you already,” Sarah said darkly, nodding in agreement. “We’ll lose forces we could use later and to no beneficial end, and we will be losing _lives_.”

Rickheimer spread his hands apologetically. “I’ll send in a call now, but the squadron will be almost there by now; the order may not go out in time to bring them back.”

“You’d better at least try,” Stormfly growled, her scales flushing blood red as she loomed over us. “There are lives on the line.”

* * *

“Roller to Haywire, any visuals yet?” Robert Semmel called into his headset. Third plane back in the formation, his view was not as clear as the lead, but he knew they had to be nearing the estimated coordinates of the fleet and either the ships would be visible, or at least show up on radar. Thus far, he hadn’t seen anything at all.

“Negative Roller,” the reply came back. “Nothing flying, no visuals on the ocean. Over.”

That didn’t settle well with him; a fleet as large as the satellites had reported couldn’t simply vanish and would be visible miles away. But, they had a mission to scout the area at minimum, no matter what was or wasn’t there.

Semmel knew, however, that if what he’d heard about Malin was correct, then they may have already flown into immediate danger. Never let it be said that he disobeyed an order, no matter the risk, however, so he turned his eyes back-

There was a flash of movement to one side, drawing his attention, but once more all that could be seen were more clouds and waves far below. Semmel clicked on his radio again. “I’m spotting strange activity to my south guys. There is something in the air. Over”

“Any visual ID?” came the reply. “Craft type? Animal? Over.”

“There was just a flash of something dark. No sturdy shape; I think whatever it is might somehow be cloak”-

The jet to his far left suddenly burst into flames, a beam of greenish yellow light searing up through it. Just beyond the flames, the silhouette of a jet-like craft Semmel had never seen before blinked into view before shimmering back out of sight.

Semmel pulled a hard right, swinging around as he yelled, “Red alert! We’re under attack! Bogey spotted at ten o’clock! Cloaked, some sort of laser weapon!”

“Laser? Are you serious?!”

He saw a flash of movement and spun his barrels in the direction of the fleeting glimpse, letting loose a barrage of tracer rounds. The craft seemed completely unaffected however, flashes of green appearing with each bullet as it swung around and targeted another squadron jet, the beam it wielded lancing forward and ripping through its target, flames exploding outward.

“Retreat, do not engage!” Semmel yelled. “I repeat, do not engage!” He spun his craft around and slammed down on the throttle, only now noticing a similar shimmer as that of the cloaked flier below them on the water; the fleet was revealing itself, massive ships adorned with craft and weapons that defied the pilot’s description. That they were offering them a glimpse immediately told Semmel of their intentions.

A scream burst through on his radio, cut short moments later as the connection went static in unison with another fireball nearby. Semmel switched his attention to the near-vision camera in the cockpit; the craft appeared behind him moments later, easily outrunning the jet that was already reaching Mach 2, and a crackling charge built up on the prongs that extended from its nose.

Semmel felt an odd emotion run through him, a sense of finality and acceptance like he’d never known. He bent his head down in prayer, knowing the only outcome that was possible, and moments later his world vanished in a flash of blinding chartreuse light.

* * *

Malin looked on from the deck of his chosen ship as the final shot ripped out; the flames that followed, trailing debris that rained down through the sky, was picturesque in his eyes.

The States had just proved their foolishness to him; no doubt Hawken and the others had warned them of his intentions and the means by which he’d achieve them. Sending out a scout force was sending them to their graves, and now everyone would know that.

He switched on his own radio, calling in to the quinjet that now circled above the fleet. “Is it done?”

“Affirmative,” was the reply. Malin nodded.

“Good. Return to deck, submit the assessment. Any information we have on field effectiveness or the success rate of the particle beam will be useful for the war tacticians.”

Another affirmative, and Malin turned his gaze to the horizon once more. It would be only a couple of days before they arrived, and clearly to him they were ready at least.

“Shots fired, Hawken,” Jonathan muttered. “The first shots have been fired.”

* * *

The report came back that evening: they’d lost contact with the five-plane squadron only minutes after they had reached Malin’s predicted coordinates. As the general and president (on the screen they had set up) relayed this information, I couldn’t help but drill them with a glare that could have caused conflagrations had I been in Fireworm form. I had warned them, Sarah had sent out the warning (albeit with a remark on the side terribly inappropriate for the situation), and Heather had grilled them about it, and they had still completely failed to grasp the reality of the situation. Five of the best jets had flown out, the fastest, most maneuverable craft in the US arsenal, and they had been flayed like drunken moths.

I stood up, interrupting Rickheimer’s report, and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” he queried.

“To the computer headquarters,” I replied. “Nobody is taking the dragon man and his allies seriously enough, so we are going to show the nation _exactly_ why they need to listen to us.” I opened the door and marched out, turning on my com as I did so. “Zipeau? Grab the memory converter and your software programs and meet me in the tech lab.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“We’re going to make a nationwide, every-channel announcement.”

Ten minutes later, I glanced over at the door as Hiccup, Astrid, Sarah, Toothless, and General Rickheimer walked in, confusion on all their faces.

“What are you doing?!” Rickheimer asked irritatedly, seeing Zipeau surrounded by keyboards and wires, and a device that only the Berkians and my family had ever seen before.

I shrugged. “Something a little unorthodox –but then that defines most of what we do- and something necessary. Zipeau here is an engineering genius like Hiccup, and he’s a bookworm. Recently he’s been brushing up on his software programming too.” I spun my chair around. “Basically, we’re going to tap into every video frequency broadcasted over the US and send through the memories we’ve collected along with a message to cover the warning this nation needs to hear, now.”

“Forgive me if I’m being naïve here,, but isn’t that technically against most federal security and privacy laws?” Rickheimer posed back in a fake-soft tone.

“As mentioned concerning the other incidents leading up to this fiasco, this situation is also unprecedented and beyond even international scope,” Zipeau replied. “This is a one-time attempt, and I’m neither planning on streaming any info back which would cost too much power anyway if that’s your concern, nor do I have any intention of leaving this technology up for others to utilize for their own purposes.” He turned back to the screen before him and continued typing, before turning back for a moment. “And you can let your superiors know I am also not releasing this software to military intelligence either. I’m the only one who can unlock it anyway.”

Without a means to physically interrupt us nor an argument we couldn’t refute or ignore, Rickheimer stood back and watched in frustration until five minutes later, when the camera was turned on me, the memory converter with its stored images of choice hooked up, and my tail was plugged in to the tech core, providing me with direct control of what played and a means to supercharge the connection and override any frequency accessible. A moment of focus, and all the screens around us blinked on with my face staring out. I glanced slightly over to Zipeau, and he nodded.

“To everyone who is viewing this broadcast, my sincerest apologies for any interruption that has been made,” I began. “My name is Hawken Carlton; many of you have likely heard of me, seen the broadcasts recently over the shocking new developments. It is time however that you understand the tale behind all this, and the implications that could affect your very chances to live soon enough.”

I changed the image, clips from How to Train Your Dragon flashing across the feed. “This once-fictional story is in fact reality, part of the history of another mirror earth that has been connected to ours. The abilities that I have were received from that world, and with them came the revelation of the responsibility that follows. It sounds like the script from another fantastical action movie, but it’s truth when I say that there are forces that work around us that aren’t visible, benign and otherwise. The lives of myself, Hiccup, Toothless, and the others are not fun and games. There are people with the intention of destroying the peace of our worlds, with power most could only dream of to do so with.”

I brought up memories of the battles with Jezebel, with the demons to the west of Narnia. The screens around us raced through flashes of fire and lightning, the glint of swords and arrows, through the loss of those once considered friends.

“For more than three years we have been fighting, both in the world of Berk and now here. As of this moment a fleet is on its way to wage war with the United States of America, the first stage of a plan for complete ruination of life as we know it by Jonathan C. Malin.” I raised an image of the man, letting it sit on the screens for a few seconds before returning the focus to me.

“Malin has no intention for mercy,” I continued. “He intends destruction and the death of anyone who does not comply with his aims. He wields great power, weapons this world has never seen and allies from the dark hollows of human imagination. You see reality one way now; what I face shreds it to pieces.” Pitch’s creatures raced through the screen, attacking the university, followed by the last transmission from the scout squadron of fire in the sky.

“This is a message to everyone: survival, let alone victory, in this war requires rapt attention, readiness, and adaptability. If you are told to evacuate your homes, do so or your life will be on the line. We are on the brink of violence like none other; do not be oblivious to this. Do not pass this on as nothing, or you may not live to see the next day.”

The camera switched off, but I left the memory converter running on the screens as I looked to Rickheimer, who was transfixed on the images behind me.

“Y-you actually participated in these battles?” he stuttered.

I nodded. “The last two were against a sorceress who had lived for more than nine hundred years; if you don’t believe me ask the Asgards, they were there back then. They are the ones whose stories were turned into the legends of gods; we had their help in bringing Jezebel down. The gang and I have faced things that I once knew were restricted to the realm of imagination and fantasy.”

I folded my hands and removed my tail from the port, both Hiccup and Astrid coming to stand beside me and Zipeau as I continued looking sternly at the general. “Now,” I continued, “are you ready to listen when we warn you? None of us will probably survive otherwise.”


	28. Stir the Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the battle begin...

_Stir the water_

_Stir the water_

_Holy Spirit_

_Stir the water_

_Send your fire_

_Send your power_

_Holy Spirit_

_Stir the water_

_~Steve Swanson: Stir the Water_

The Empire State building stood tall and eerily devoid of life above the Manhattan skyline, a vantage point for Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the bay beyond; the sky was gray, saturated with moisture and tension, and the ghostly empty city below darkened the already sour mood that hung in the air.

I stood at the very top of the Empire State, overlooking that dreary view and the fleet beyond that was just beginning to show itself to me. Though to standard radar and other detection technologies they would still be invisible, I could also see the cloaked quinjets taking off and circling above the ships; human machines could only hide themselves from so many wavelengths of light.

I glanced down below where I clung to the metal spire, where Amethyst, Hiccup, Toothless, Ember, and Orhaganuz were also perched on the building, and switched on my com, opening channels to everyone who was wearing one.

“Visual confirmed, first advances expected in less than five minutes. Is everyone in position?”

“Everyone has confirmed their stations,” Sarah’s voice answered back. “Jordan and Tohar are in the bay and shielded; Jake, Eret, Spitfire, and Kingsley are in the subways, which have been switched off. Loki and Thor are below you, the other Asgards spread amongst the military divisions, and the rest have been distributed through the city.”

“Is Holly with Cami and the raptors?”

“Yes,” my sister’s slightly irritated and impatient tone broke in before Sarah could relay.

I chuckled. “Alright. Everyone standby; as soon as they move in I’m laying down the smokescreen. Do not engage Pitch or any other new characters alone; wait for me or one of the other riders if possible and take out any and all defenses where you get the chance.”

Ember and Hiccup flipped down the visors on their helmets, and I crouched, charcoal wings spread, as I watched the ships from the spire, waiting.

The vessels continued to advance closer, and I spotted the first of the cloaked quinjets touching down on the city coast, no doubt releasing the first ground soldiers in order to secure a safe unloading zone. It was time.

I dropped down off the building, my scales lightening and forming swirling bands of various gray shades, and glided into the maze of glass and steel as I breathed out the catalyst. Behind me, the billowing clouds rolled outward and spread through the cityscape, a bank of fog separating sky from ground and providing us with the cover dragons would use for attacks. As soon as the city was cloaked under the mist layer, I morphed Shadowracer and faded from view, gliding down to the streets below the mist and racing to the coast, right over the heads of the first enemy troops.

Every single one flinched and ducked as the air current that followed my wings rushed over them, raising their guns to the sky. Without a visible target though, they stalled. So, I gave them one they could see.

“War’s begun,” I growled into the com as I de-cloaked, flaring my wings in front of the men. Gunfire erupted in earnest, the bullets filling the air in front of me as the field I erected slowed them to a halt, freezing every one of the projectiles in midair like a hanging bead curtain.

Seeing this, the soldiers slowly stopped firing one by one, staring at me in confusion and growing terror; they clearly didn’t have a backup plan for when they couldn’t shoot the enemy. I smirked, showing off rows of razor teeth, and raised my paw; the bullets followed it, turning around and spreading out wide as electricity raced from me to the metal rounds.

“Tell Malin, and the devil, I said hello,” I snarled, and sent the projectiles flying.

* * *

Holly heard the sounds of distant gunshots and tensed, dozens of emotions running through her all at once. She felt Nara tense similarly underneath her, both of them staring at the ready out the window they were stationed behind.

“Get any more uptight there and you’ll pop something,” Cami remarked, walking up next to the pair. The blonde heiress was almost more decked out than Holly was, both of them brimming with dozens of sharp objects on their persons.

“Look, we’ll be heading out soon enough,” Cami continued. “Don’t be excited for war to start; it’s not pretty.”

“I know that,” Holly quipped back. “I’m ready for not pretty at this point though. I’ve got energy to spend, and someone hurt my brother and wants to ruin life for all of us, so I’ve also got a vendetta and I intend to shove it back down their throats.” She turned to face Cami directly, noting the at-the-ready stance of Stormfly behind the Viking, and sighed. Holly opened her mouth again to say something else, when Hiccup’s voice rang in over their coms.

“Smokescreen’s down, all riders to the air!” he ordered. “Raptors, Feren, Sasha, Zipeau, deploy! Jake, Kingsley, Eret, be ready!”

Cami looked to Holly, a dangerous grin forming. “Alright, now we can get this party on the move!” she said lightly, spinning and leaping up onto Stormfly as both dragons crouched and leapt out the window, diving into the fog and turning sharply down the street.

The roads were clear for a few moments before a foreign procession of trucks appeared below, the soldiers stacked within the beds immediately piling out and aiming for the riders that they spotted above them.

“Shields up you two?” Cami called through the com to Holly and Nara.

“Yep!” came the reply.

“Alright then, let’s light ‘em up! Astrid, want to take the first shot or should we?”

“With pleasure,” Astrid’s voice answered, seconds before a series of Nadder spikes rained down from the opposite end of the procession, Astrid leaping off of Thorn and dashing through the soldiers, axe flying.

Holly and Nara dove down and mimicked the other human/Nadder pair somewhat, the second Nadder spraying flames and throwing a barrage of spines through the fire. The ignited projectiles embedded in the sides of the trucks, setting fires and blowing up gas tanks.

Holly grabbed her first set of throwing spikes, each one laced with a dose of Piffleworm venom, from the belt of her outfit. As Nara swooped low over the men below, the duo’s fields lighting up from the bullets ricocheting off them, the teen flicked her wrist and let loose the spikes. A dozen soldiers staggered back a second later, struck fatally or soon falling from the toxin, and Holly grinned in victory.

Then she turned around and frowned as Cami let loose a wild yell, the warrioress somersaulting across the hood of a truck as her swords whipped out and whirled at incredible speed. Blades intersected bullets as they pierced the air, the pieces flying off in new directions and taking out the enemy beyond the reach of the swords themselves.

“Come on, you have to steal the show?” Holly yelled down sarcastically.

“Just doing my job!” Cami shot back with a grin.

“Got a plan,” Nara said, looking up at her rider.

“Then I’m all ears,” Holly responded. The Nadder relayed her thoughts, and Holly’s smile widened in anticipation, her hand reaching into the pack strapped to the dragon’s side and pulling out a long, coiled chain. She had become attached to the monkey fist she often took to school; this was an advanced version, taking somewhat after Hawken’s old habit of whip practice.

As Holly uncoiled the chain, finger over a button on the handle, Nara braced herself and flipped upside down as she raced over the column of men that had foolishly lined themselves up in neat order. Holly swung the chain out and pressed the button down hard, glinting spines erecting along the entire length and producing a whirling disk of sharp edges that swept through the enemy line with fury. Behind the attack, a path of crippling lacerations and destroyed weapons appeared, incapacitating more than two dozen men.

“Oh, so now who’s stealing the show?” Cami laughed as she and Stormfly swept by. Holly shrugged and turned to reply as Nara righted herself, before their coms crackled to life and cut her off.

“Calling in backup!” Delta’s voice urged. “In the corner office, 134th, there are more than just soldiers fighting here!”

Holly and Cami shared a glance, before both looked over toward Astrid. “Pitch,” Holly muttered, the three of them directing their dragons toward where the raptors were pinned down.

* * *

Despite being cloaked, the quinjet stood out clear as day to Toothless as he fired off echolocatory rounds, hidden from sight but not from sound.

<Ten o’ clock Hiccup!> he barked, his rider immediately twisting and pulling back the string on Framherja, letting the bolt fly. Thunder cracked as it collided, shorting out the jet’s cloak and making it visible even to the visually impaired. Unfortunately, the shot also caught the pilot’s full attention, and the weapons on the nose swung in their direction. Energy built up on the prong tips, before lancing through the air toward dragon and rider and forcing them to dive hard when their barrier fields failed to block the beam.

“Hawken, we’ve got a problem!” Hiccup yelled into his com. “The beams the jets are firing can get through the shields; whatever energy they’re creating isn’t blocked!”

“I’m on it,” Hawken replied as Toothless spun and came up behind the craft; one thing they had learned quickly was that while the jets were a lot faster than a Night Fury, there was nothing that was more maneuverable in the air than a dragon.

<3, 2, 1,> Toothless counted down, before he and Hiccup fired simultaneously. The resulting explosion proved too much for the right engine, and the wing ripped to splinters, sending the craft down to the sea below.

Another beam lanced through the air nearby, and Toothless banked to the right. <Any visual on Cloudjumper and Valka?> he called up to Hiccup, who shook his head.

“Not yet; she’s probably still with Dad and the other soldiers. But, we should be seeing”-

He was cut off when thunder rolled through the sky, and a pair of different familiar figures raced by, one carried by the weapon in his hand and the other encircled by a swirling magnetic field.

“And there they are,” Hiccup drawled. “Aurianna, Thor! Avoid the jets, the fields don’t block the beams!”

“Understood,” Aurianna answered, seconds before lightning exploded around them and drowned out any other noise, bolts streaking through the sky and raking across the nearest ships, tearing holes in the decks of some and setting fires, and revealing blinding barriers around others.

“Should keep them busy for a while,” Thor joked, angling Mjolnir downward and aiming for the deck of the nearest un-shielded ship. As he landed, dozens of soldiers surged forward, guns leveled.

Thor grinned. “Fools, a gun is nothing compared to this!” He spun Mjolnir in his hands and swung it outward, throwing the nearest men on their backs from the force of the air behind it and following with an electric wave, the current jumping between weapon barrels and setting off the gunpowder within as well as electrocuting the men who didn’t manage to get taken out by their own weapons.

A quarter mile away along the edge of the harbor, a ferry from one of the ships was unloading another platoon. The commander had his gun up and cocked, ready to take out anything that showed itself; his hard life in northern Africa had made him primed for military work long before he’d ever enlisted, and this was no different to him.

“Move faster!” he barked. “The sooner we’re in the city the harder it will be for them to target us!”

“The cannon’s stuck!” another soldier snapped back. “Wheel’s in the rut here, so until we can manage to –hnnn!”

The commander spun to see the man freeze in place, before falling backward with a thud, a silvery arrow rising from his chest where it pierced clean through his body armor. A gust of wind seconds later brought the commander’s weapon back up into firing position as alarms triggered in his mind.

“We’re under attack!” he yelled. “Form your ranks!”

A flurry of motion brought the platoon up into several rings in a circle, gun barrels leveled outward and waiting. The commander spotted a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and swung his barrel upward, letting loose a barrage of bullets, but it was too late to counter. Another silver arrow rocketed down from above, seemingly appearing out of thin air, but this one didn’t hit any men.

Instead, it buried itself into the center of the circle of men, and a flash of white erupted, ice racing outward and freezing the soldiers in their tracks. Unable to free their feet, they watched helplessly as a third arrow materialized out of the sky and drove into the same spot; this one exploded as well, but with fire instead of ice. The blast ripped apart the frozen sheet that had formed and sent the shrapnel flying out at the front of the shockwave.

In seconds, all the men were splayed on the ground, the platoon commander the only one still either alive or conscious enough to see the black dragon and his rider shimmer into view and glide down to hover above him.

“If this is all your side has to offer this war won’t last long,” Ember chided, pulling out one more arrow and stringing it up. “Should’ve stayed far from these shores.” She let the arrow fly, watching impassively as the tip punctured straight through the commander’s forehead and dropped him instantly.

Ember sighed, before pressing the button on her com. “Platoon number 12 is taken care of,” she reported, she and Orha vanishing from view again as they banked back into the city. “First move on their part hasn’t been that impressive all things considered, I have to admit.”

She spoke too soon. An explosion sounded from out to sea, followed by several more, and spheres of fire erupted from the fleet, arcing over the waves to slam into the buildings lining the shore. Flames melted metal and ate away at wood and siding, and the structures began to implode and fall one after the other.

Ember’s eyes widened and she spurred Orha out to sea, yelling into her com again, “Evacuate the shorelines! Stay in the city or in the air, they’re firing projectiles! Five buildings brought down already!”

“Should we find the weapons responsible?” Orha queried, looking back.

Ember nodded, hands on her bow and another arrow in anticipation. “Absolutely. Destroy them and we can form a blockade line again. Looks like things are picking up now.”

* * *

Zipeau had helped fill the city with cameras feeding remotely to the control room back on the academy grounds, and Sarah was now both grateful and in pain over that fact. The screens in front of her were filled with images of the battles raging in the city to the south of the facility she was in, allowing her, Rickheimer and a handful of other techs to monitor the situation and feed intel to the troops and riders. The first attacks from the ships directly on the city had immediately put Sarah on alert, especially when enemy platoons began appearing on screen almost immediately afterward without any visible landing craft.

“Ruff, Tuff, column heading up your way!” she called into her headset. “Signal Odin and Freyja, they’re nearby; you can corner the approach up the avenue! Thuggory, you still near Feren?”

“Yep!”

“Great, there’s…something in the fog just to your south. It’s not human, but I don’t think it’s Pitch or the Bioraptors either.”

“Isn’t that where Holly and the raptors are now?”

“Yes. Cover them if you can get there.”

“Should we scramble jets?” Rickheimer queried from two seats over.

Sarah paused for a second, before nodding in agreement. “Yeah; it’ll help distract the quinjets so that Amethyst and Hawken can take them out. Just try to keep them out of direct range; we do _not_ need a repeat of the scout incident that we served up on a platter. And”-

“Movement detected near the coastal subway stations!” one of the techs at the controls announced. Sarah turned and got up from her seat, walking over behind him to look at the screen.

“Finally, we got someone to feed to the snakes, huh?” she quipped dryly, before noticing the looks she got. “Sorry. Ahem, Jake, Eret, everyone down below: you’re up!”

A quiet reply responded before Sarah turned her attention to the battalion descending into the subway undergrounds on the screen.

* * *

They’d shut off the lights down below, but for those who were stationed in the subways it wasn’t a problem in the slightest. Spitfire was used to working in low light situations, Eret had been outfitted with infrared goggles as well as the guns holstered on his sides and back, and several stations away Kingsley was waiting, having also inherited Hawken’s nocturnal vision capacities along with his ever-changing venoms.

Waiting near the coastal subway stations, however, and the most in his element, was Jake. As a rattlesnake, he was naturally equipped with an incredible sense: heat pits capable of detecting temperature differences within a thousandth of a degree and tied directly to his optic nerves; the snake could literally “see” in infrared. Despite the fact that he was hiding amongst pipes in pitch black, the far walls of the tunnel were visible to Jake in perfect detail like he was lying in direct sun. And, he could hear and feel the vibrations of footsteps heading his way.

The first man, a south-Asian character dressed in military fatigues, rounded the corner up ahead, equipped with night vision goggles and attempting to move without making a sound. Behind him, two columns of armed men snaked down the subway tunnel, approaching slowly as they scanned the area.

Jake grinned; he was coiled around water pipes off to the side and equaling their diameter with his own. By the time the soldiers noticed that one of the tubes on the wall had a different texture in their vision, if the goggles could even pick that up, it would already be too late.

As he shifted however, the snake’s gun clinked against the pipe above him, causing Jake to freeze. The sound echoed slightly off the walls of the tunnel, bringing the lead soldier to halt and raise his hand, everyone behind him slowing to a stop as well.

A tense several moments ticked by as Jake stayed as motionless as possible, watching as the soldier swept his gaze slowly across the walls, searching for the source of the sound. His focus stopped directly on the collection of pipes and wires that the snake was coiled in, and Jake tensed, ready to leap out at a moment’s notice.

Finally, however, the soldier relaxed, and muttered, “Loose pipes. Keep moving.” The platoon turned forward again and marched past Jake unperturbed.

The rattler waited until he estimated half the column had passed, and made his move. He spilled out of the pipes, fangs bared and tail buzzing furiously, and landed on the closest startled man, sinking his fangs deep as his gun aimed out in a wide arc, spraying bullets that bounced and echoed through the tunnel in deafening blasts and blinding muzzle flashes.

The men around him immediately either fell from the snake’s bullets or aimed their own guns at his coils, hesitating momentarily upon seeing one of their comrades still in the reptile’s mouth, and then scrambled backward as Jake grew to his full hundred-foot length.

“They didn’t call me the Grim Reaper for nothing,” Jake chuckled, dropping the now-dead soldier and opening fire again. “The angel of death comes in many forms!”

“Retreat!” echoed through the ranks as they scrambled in the direction of the tunnel fork ahead. Jake moved to follow, unhindered as the enemy bullets bounced off the barrier surrounding him, but he slowed when one man stopped to spin around and face him again, bringing a grenade launcher to bear on the serpent.

Jake halted momentarily in surprise, before also leveling his Gatling gun at him, the barrels spinning in warning.

The soldier fired first, and the grenade slammed into Jake’s field head-on. Jake expected the barrier to deflect it, and so did not attempt to dodge, but while the barrier did prevent the shrapnel and fire from ever reaching the snake (though the latter wouldn’t have mattered much, what with Jake being fire-resistant already), to Jake’s surprise the shockwave of the blast threw him backward, colliding with the subway walls.

As the deafening echoes died away, Jake groaned and lifted his head. “Ugh, thank God he let me have thick scales; how nice of Aurianna to tell us explosions are still a problem,” he muttered, before turning on his com. “Eret, forces heading your way; I’ll be right behind them.”

Five blocks east, Eret nodded as Jake’s heads-up came in through his headset, and reached over to pat his new companion. “Alright Spitfire, it’s time to get in position. They’ll be coming momentarily.”

The Changewing nodded and vanished from sight, climbing up to the tunnel’s ceiling as Eret hid behind the wall of the station they were waiting in.

Panicked footsteps sounded only a minute later, and the glare of headlamps turned on in the enemy troops’ panic to escape the giant rattlesnake illuminated the narrow space. As soon as the first one dashed by Eret opened fire, bringing the man down as the former tradesman leapt forward, one hand operating the handgun he held and the other pulling out a broad-bladed dagger that Stoick had entrusted him with.

“Dragon trapper to idiot trapper; definitely a more satisfactory career path I think,” he joked mockingly, swiping the blade forward and bringing two more men to the ground when they didn’t slow enough to dodge and slowing the progress of the rest. As soon as they slowed sufficiently, a shower of acid rained down as Spitfire joined the offense. The liquid bit into the vests and metal clips of the soldiers’ outfits, melting them and attacking the tissue beneath, before the Changewing swung his tail down and through the crowd, slamming them into the wall and rendering them unconscious, finished off by the acid as they lay unmoving and defenseless.

Moments later Jake showed up again, and the few remaining enemy troops standing were brought down by bullets from both sides, delivered by Eret and the rattler.

“Underground attack has been neutralized,” the former called in. “We’ll continue holding the perimeter until-what in the name of-!!!!”

Eret ducked as something black, leathery looking and full of teeth leapt out from the shadows and swept sharpened claws toward him. A second appeared a half second later, managing a slash at Eret’s chest and scraping along his armor before a bullet from Jake ended it.

“I spoke too soon,” Eret said shakily again into the headset. “There are Bioraptors in the subway corridors; they’re unaffected by the force fields!”

“They’re made of dark matter,” Aurianna answered in, “the field energy can’t combat that!”

“Well, Myscale still holds them off, so there’s that.”

“Stay on full alert then; I received word from Hawken, he and Amethyst are taking on the jets, but if anyone gains visual of Pitch he’ll come in. Do not take Pitch on yourself!”

“I’ll hold him off if necessary” Jake added in, “but you’re right; we can’t do much beyond that.”

* * *

They’d discussed the likelihood that Malin would bring in more than just human soldiers and Pitch’s forces to this battle; after all, he’d already fought them with a snake, dinosaurs, the Bioraptors, and advanced weapons.

As such, Delta found it almost ironic that somehow she and her pack encountered the wolves first. They’d cornered off a section of street alongside a now-abandoned bank, and the wolves had swept up the road through a low-hanging bank of fog, teeth bared and fully equipped with armor.

Only, these were not normal wolves (armor aside). Delta and the others had become well-acquainted with Fenrir Asgard and the unusuality of his size, but this was something fully different: they were built with jaws like a crocodile’s, their limbs ending with claws that were more reminiscent of a Nightmare’s talons than wolf paws, and they were even larger than Fenrir himself. And, they were fast, practically scaling the walls of the buildings they raced past.

The raptors were not ones to be caught off guard however, and crouched, waiting for them to get close enough before pouncing with teeth and claws bared in turn.

The two sides crashed together, the jaws of the wolves encountering first the barrier fields before closing on Myscale suits, and their claws gaining lucky shots between the dinosaurs’ hard scales; at close range the barriers didn’t provide much protection, but the raptors had known that going in. Unfortunately, they also found something else unsettling: the armor of the wolves were resisting even the Mysteel-tipped claws they bore.

“Calling in backup!” Delta yelled into her headset. “In the corner office, 134th, there are more than just soldiers fighting here!” She rolled, avoiding the powerful snap of jaws as she shoved her hind limb upward, pulling open the adversary’s throat. It gurgled and collapsed, and the raptor rolled out of the way, coming up next to Shadow as they both faced another pair.

Magnesium fire raced past, and Delta glanced up to see Astrid and Holly fly by on their Nadders, Stormfly and Cami close behind.

“Their armor is Mysteel resistant!” the raptor yelled up.

“Great!” Holly quipped back sarcastically. “Armored wargs; any signs of a commander?”

“They’re what?”

“Wargs! Fictional monsters like mutated wolves! If we can find-AAAHHHH!! Where the heck did _that_ come from?!”

Nara had banked hard and shot upward, avoiding a flurry of projectiles that came flying up from the fog to the east; despite having barriers, it was still instinctive to dodge the attack. In the distraction, another warg barreled into Delta, flattening her to the ground. She hissed and brought the sickle claw on her right foot up, gutting her opponent, before leaping up onto a doorway overhang to see what had attacked Holly.

“Well, we know who the commander is now,” she reported darkly, taking in the sight before being forced to move by another of the wolves.

He wore a robe of woven silk and metal fibers, claws plated with metal and his head crest and red-marked tail feathers lined with blades. Holly recognized the character immediately as she and Nara came back around and under the fog, especially when he unveiled from under his robe a long, double-bladed glaive etched with oriental designs.

“Silas, Natasha, behind you!” Holly yelled out, grabbing a dart and letting it fly toward the ivory-toned peacock. The two raptors ducked to the side to avoid the swing of Shen’s weapon, and then his blade came up and deflected the dart as well, sending it straight into the path of a spike that Thorn had sent toward a warg coming up behind Shadow. The beast leapt and dragged the dark-hued dinosaur to the ground, Shadow’s field firing off at the initial contact, but fading as he rolled and brought his head around, sinking teeth into the warg’s neck. Looking on almost impassively, Shen spun his glaive and turned his gaze up toward the dragons above him again, russet eyes narrowing in a chilling stare.

“Calling for backup, we’ve got wargs and a war-bird on the northern quarter!” Astrid radioed into her headset, turning Thorn around as she looked for an opening to drop into the fight without putting herself at a disadvantage. Unfortunately, such spaces were disturbingly sparse.

“Tied up with the wolves as well over here, sorry!” Feren’s voice replied. “Thuggory and Snotlout are cornered nearby, and –whoa!” The sound of a scuffle echoed through the com, before Feren continued, out of breath. “Fandral and Heimdall might be coming in with the troops soon; maybe Sam and Denise are nearby. Does anyone copy?”

“Already here!” Sam yelled, coming around the corner with a gun in hand. Behind him marched Denise, flanked by a battalion of troops.

Three of the wargs in the scuffle turned and leapt for them, claws bared. They got just a little too close for comfort before the first gunshot went off, Sam bringing down one with his rifle as his wife critically wounded another with her gun. Dodging to the side to avoid the third, they turned to see the soldiers behind them take care of that immediate threat, giving the two the opportunity to fan out and prepare a front line. In response to the sudden influx of opponents, a high-pitched call echoed from the peacock on the other side of the square, and Shen’s troops began to organize, lines of dripping jaws forming to face the defenders.

“I have no intention of standing down, in case it wasn’t clear!” the peacock chuckled, spinning his blades. “You would have to be an incredible shot to hit me, and not get taken down by the wolves first!”

“Save the rant for someone who cares!” Astrid snapped, somersaulting off of Thorn and landing upright in front of Shen, axe and sword swinging out at the ready. “Fight off this _and_ a bullet or twelve you pompous bag of pillow stuffing!”

Shen’s response was blazing fast and accurate, the tip of his glaive sliding between the prongs of Astrid’s axe and twisting, wrenching the blade away. Astrid instinctively brought up her sword as she lost hold of her other weapon, catching the other end of Shen’s glaive as it swung for her head, before she twisted around and removed her sword from the lock and grabbed up her axe off the ground, twirling both her blades and bringing them down to meet the glaive again.

Something rammed into Astrid from her side as she turned her head to keep tabs on the peacock again, her barrier flaring red as she skidded to the side. The warg responsible snarled and brought its jaws down, intent to bite her head clean off now that it was close enough to bypass the field.

Astrid’s gift of speed kicked in instinctively, the warrior ducking just barely out of the way as teeth slammed together just beyond her ear, and she switched her blades between hands and drove her sword up with her right, catching the creature between its armor plates and burying the blade deep in its neck. A sickening squelch accompanied the blade’s removal along with a horrifying amount of blood, and Astrid rolled out of the way as the beast collapsed, both to avoid being squashed and painted red.

Her field flashed again as Shen’s blade came down hard, drawing Astrid’s attention back to him. “You’re distracted easily in battle, a dangerous prospect,” the peacock mused.

“Kind of important to kill the animal about to bite me in half as opposed to the psychotic bird several feet away,” Astrid quipped, flashing her sword. Shen ignored her remark as he side-stepped, spinning and flaring his tail fan, the multitude of razor edges along it driving Astrid back before she leapt up and swung her axe.

A powerful blow blocked the blade and threw Astrid off balance, hitting the ground hard and rolling clumsily before she turned to find Shen leaping toward her, knocking her to the ground again and rattling her weapons from her hands before she could get her feet under her, his claws pressed against the warrioress’ armor and, while unable to penetrate, effectively rendering Astrid immobile. With Holly and Camicazi and their dragons still held back by the fight with Shen’s troops, Astrid had no visible backup as Shen chuckled, spinning his glaive and blocking a round of bullets from the far side of the square before bringing the longer of the two blades down toward her face.

A light flashed nearby, and Astrid cringed as something raced over her head, colliding with the blade intended for her skull and wrenching it away from its intended path to plunge into asphalt instead. Both of the fighters stalled for a moment a looked in the direction that the energy projectile had originated from.

Zipeau stood in a clearing within the descending fog bank, clad in a complex Myscale outfit covered in buttons, objects, and spikes lining his spine and tail. In his hand he held what looked like a Mysteel baton, and he aimed the narrow end at Shen.

“Took the idea from Odin and Freyja’s swords,” he drawled. “It releases energy fields when swung, and that’s not the only capacity it has.” The Stenonychosaurus pressed a button on the shaft, and an array of blades unfolded in a fan around the tip. “Let her go, bird.”

“You’ll have to fight me off of her, fool,” Shen bit back.

Zipeau shrugged, a faint smile appearing on his features, and he whipped his other hand forward.

A pair of barrels extended forward off the dinosaur’s arm and fired a pair of small projectiles. Shen automatically brought his glaive up to bock them, only for the objects to release unidirectional explosions, throwing him backward off of Astrid.

The warrioress quickly rolled to the side, swiping up her weapons again and positioning herself alongside Zipeau, facing off Shen as he regained his own footing.

“Still think you’ve got the upper hand, you pasty turkey?” Astrid mocked. Shen’s eyes narrowed again, and he flung his wing in their direction, letting a hail of blades fly.

* * *

Sasha had helped head the first military attack on the enemy troops unloading to the south along Staten Island (how he’d landed that position after his reputation had become known he would never be able to guess); several flanks of dragon riders sweeping through the fog and laying down cover fire preceded the less protected ground forces, and Sasha let loose a roar and leapt forward at the head of the procession, bringing down a man of eastern European descent that was aiming a massive gun barrel at the tiger’s head.

One smack of a massive paw ensured the man’s neck was broken in a heartbeat, and Sasha morphed, picking up the gun the enemy had held and bringing it to bear instead on the stunned infantry that had unloaded behind their cover man from the ship in the harbor.

“Your boss is working with movie characters and fighting dragons; a tiger with a gun shouldn’t dazzle you that badly,” he muttered, and pulled the trigger. Rapid machine gun fire lit up the area, rattling off until the weapon ran out of ammunition.

With the first line down, the soldiers around Sasha rushed forward and dove into battle, as Sasha’s attention turned upward to where Teshra was emerging from the fog, the little dragon heading straight for a quinjet that was gaining a bead on the back end of Sasha’s platoon with a stony look on her muzzle.

“Clear out!” the tiger yelled around him, turning to escape the aim of the craft as well, before yelling upward and through his headset, “Teshra, what the hell are you doing?!”

“Language!” a sharp reply came back as the Terror glared down at him for only a second. “Trust me; I know what I’m doing!” She flapped right up into the line of fire where she was certain to be the first thing to be hit, halted with her wings wide and pumping away, and stared down the craft.

The display and the yell through the com managed to catch the attention of Hawken, who was not quite nearby but was out over the water where he could see the Descendant clearly, and he too immediately yelled out, “Teshra! The barriers don’t block the beams! Move!”

But it was too late to divert the Terror’s focus, and no one was close enough to pull her away. The quinjet powered up, and the beam lanced forward, engulfing the dragon in a putrid light. Sasha and Hawken both screamed helplessly at the sight, the latter lighting up the sky with lightning and fire as he surged toward the jet.

The beam died back only a moment later, but something continued to glow in the air, the energy that had been fired swirling and pulsing before it condensed and disappeared. In place of the eerie light was Teshra, seemingly none the worse for wear and bearing a truly massive smug grin on her face.

“Told you guys I knew what I was doing,” she giggled, before her wings snapped forward and the same energy that the jet had let loose rocketed off of them and back toward the craft, tearing straight through the cockpit and ripping the jet in half. As the pieces fell to the ocean, Teshra fluttered down to land on Sasha’s shoulder, smirking with enough self-satisfaction to make even the mischievous tiger wince.

“Why didn’t you tell us about that?” Sasha queried, both of them finally turning their attention to face the soldiers still fighting away.

Teshra shrugged. “Didn’t feel like it,” she yawned. “But now’s not the time; let’s focus on winning this thing, shall we?”

“We will have a talk though, especially about you scaring me half to death in an already dangerous situation!” Hawken snapped through their headsets. “I don’t need the distractions. Now do your jobs already!”

Sasha winced alongside his semi-sister, before they looked to each other and shared a grin. Both of them crouched, Teshra taking to the air again as Sasha let loose a bone-rattling roar and leapt forward, claws outstretched.


	29. A Game of Attrition

_The player shifts the board_

_The pawns they follow suit_

_A move of practiced ease_

_A win of little loot_

_One gives_

_One takes_

_One feints_

_One fakes_

_The rules stand as they were_

_In the end a single aim_

_Yet unlike chess or checkers_

_War is a deadly game_

Malin realized he had made a small mistake when he saw the first jet on screen make an attempt to fry the dragon he knew to be Hawken, only for the energy beam to reverse direction seconds later and vaporize the craft.

He was not, however, expecting the additional complication of the dragon boy’s half-sibling Terrible Terror possessing the same capability. Immediately after the littler dragon brought down another quinjet on her own he reached over and opened up the channels to all the jets he was in contact with.

“Do not, I repeat, do _not_ fire the energy weapons or any explosives at Hawken or the Terror!” he ordered. “They will use it against us; do _not_ give them that advantage! Send in the fliers; Pitch, I need your nightmares up against the dragons, and”-

“Sir?”

“What?!”

Malin swung around to face one of the men at the sonar platform, who was staring at one of the screens with concern. He looked up timidly, and motioned Malin over.

“U-unless there’s a malfunction in our sonar systems, we have another problem,” he said anxiously, pointing to the screen where a table of oceanic depth values was rapidly fluctuating. “Either the floor of the ocean itself is moving, or there is something very large rising up toward us.”

Malin peered closer to confirm the observation, before his eyes widened and he punched the intercom button again, but for a different channel.

“Launch the submarine defenses! All vessels on alert for undersea attacks, move now!”

Another alarm went off, and on the screens Malin saw a pair of ships shudder suddenly and tilt in the water, a green crystalline mass of ice erupting between them and locking the vessels in place. Seconds later, a wake appeared in the water, as something massive surged toward them, and a pair of enormous tusks rose out of the sea to slam into the closest of the trapped ships. Even through the radio relays the scream of tearing metal was almost painful as the hull was shredded, rendering the ship useless. Malin grimaced at the loss.

“He fights with Berkian Vikings,” he growled, “how did I miss the possibility of a Bewilderbeast entering the fight?” Turning, he made sure that the barrier defenses were operating around the ship he was on, before clicking the intercom again. “Directive orders to all aquatic vessels: torpedoes on the Bewilderbeast, and drive it from the fleet! Guard the jet hangar crafts and”-

“Sensors are picking up another disturbance!” the sonar monitor interrupted, before cringing when he realized he’d cut his boss off a second time. Malin shot him a look, before his gaze turned to the screen as the monitor brought up the image. This time an object was truly discernible, not as large but seemingly a fair bit longer, and it was moving fast as it undulated not up from below them, but instead emerging from the outer ocean and racing toward them.

Malin growled in frustration and turned to the intercom yet again. “Vessels to the rear of the fleet, if you have not done so yet, erect your defenses now!”

One of the screens on the main display flashed up with a view toward the east, and after only a moment the rising wake became visible beyond the furthest ships. The vessel it was aiming for shimmered, their force field erected fully, but the threat didn’t slow. Seconds later, the head of a reptile Malin had definitely never seen before erupted from the sea, towering over the ship before dropping down hard. The fields surrounding both of them fired, before sparks exploded around the ship as the creature wrapped its long body around the vessel and squeezed. Nearby weapons deployed, only to be deflected by the barrier borne by the reptile, and the ship in its clutches screeched as metal crumpled inward under pressure. Soon, both sank from the surface, and moments later the reptile’s head resurfaced, piercing blue eyes scanning the fleet.

“Energy weapons target the sea serpent!” Malin ordered now, glaring at the image still before him. “It has a barrier field and”-

He was cut off (again, and it was truly becoming irksome how he could never finish his thoughts anywhere) as the speakers in the ship around him crackled, and a new, deep-yet-silky voice rang through them. “It’s Oceanguard to you, Malin, not _sea serpent_ ,” it said, the proclamation immediately catching Malin well off-guard. “Count yourself lucky as I can’t pinpoint you, but you might find the use of your beam weapons less than effective here; your use of the intercoms might be of little help as well.”

The head of the Oceanguard turned, and though he had claimed that he couldn’t source Malin’s location, he managed to lock gazes directly with the camera pinned on him, before rapidly submerging again.

Malin’s mind immediately went into a panicked overdrive, trying to identify something that would have the capacity to fight both the Bewilderbeast and the serp- ahem, _Oceanguard_ , and keep them busy long enough for the fleet to move in for the next phase. An idea soon crossed his mind, and he told the monitors to have the submarines stand by as his gaze turned to the sea. A wave of unholy power raced out from the man toward the ocean he watched.

Below the fleet, Jordan immediately noticed something change around him, the pressure in the water altering dramatically and detectably to the senses of a marine animal like him.

<Tohar, we’ve got something else down here,> he growled out as he dove under another vessel, scanning the depths beneath him even as he arced his tail upward, shorting out the ship’s barrier field as he carved a gash in the hull with the Mysteel edges his family had fitted on his fins; the water rapidly rushing into the gaping hole would take care of the rest.

Tohar swam up next to the Oceanguard, the ocean swirls behind the Bewilderbeast threatening the stability of several other nearby ships in the fleet. <I felt it too,> he agreed. <Take to the north, I’ll take the south; search the floor and we’ll find->

Something huge, metallic, and fast erupted out of the depths and clamped down on Tohar’s tail, dragging him downward. Jordan reacted immediately, diving down alongside his partner and wrapping several coils around the object, anchoring himself as he slammed his armored tailfins into it. The sound of ripping metal resounded through the water, and the object released Tohar, allowing the Bewilderbeast to turn and face the direction the attack had emerged from. As it retreated, they both traced with their eyes the length of the object to its origin.

It was massive, staring up at them from along the floor of the ocean. Both Jordan and Tohar were used to being the biggest things to ever move within the water, and they felt dwarfed by the new presence. The arm that the metal claw had been attached to was nearly the length of the Bewilderbeast on its own, beyond which extended the plated body, propelled by spindly legs clearly stronger than they looked to be and a tail as wide as an aircraft carrier. The head was almost laughably small by comparison, adorned by glowing lenses for eyes and what looked like tentacles surrounding the region where an organism’s mouth would have been.

<Tell me, I am not the only one gaining a dreadful feeling over this, am I?> Jordan muttered as he stared with widening eyes.

Tohar nodded agreement, spreading the spiny fin-like wings on his sides instinctively. <Malin’s made another weapon,> he replied softly. <Stay out of the line of fire, and find weak points! Oh, and call Hawken now!>

* * *

I swerved around the side of an F-16 on our side and fired point-blank at a quinjet, the plasma orb exploding in the cockpit and sending the craft to the water below, before turning on a dime and flaring my wings wide to slow down.

“Valka, behind you!” I yelled through my com, seeing a lone Bioraptor hurtling down toward the Stormcutter and his rider. As Cloudjumper rolled Valka kept pace around him (I still don’t know how she manages that), turning and bringing the serrated end of her staff up to cleave the black sand abomination in half. Then, as soon as Cloudjumper had managed to right himself, Valka pulled out a special weapon she’d acquired from our military allies from the pack on her dragon’s side, and aimed the barrel at a rocket screaming in from one of the ships. One click of a button, and a rocket-propelled grenade whistled through the air into the other explosive, taking out both in a deafening blast that knocked even another nearby rocket off course and in the direction of one of Malin’s deployment vessels.

“Hawken!” I heard suddenly through the com, diverting my attention away and out toward the main fleet. It was Jordan, and if he was calling me, something had gone way wrong.

“Malin’s deployed something massive down below,” he explained, “looks like a metal lobster but it’s huge!”

“A lobster? How big is this thing?”

“One arm is as long as Tohar is, whole thing has to be five times my length or more and HOLY WHAT THE?!!!”

A bright flash erupted out of the water beyond the ships, a stream of unidentifiable energy that split the air and dissipated somewhere beyond the barrier of clouds high above us. A sound like thunder on steroids followed, water boiling from contact with the attack.

I had seen something like it before, however, and a memory of a favorite old cartoon surfaced and sent a chill down my spine.

“Leviathan,” I muttered quietly.

“What?”

“A movie rendition of the Leviathan, it’s an Atlantean weapon! Whatever you do, do not let it shoot you!”

“I surmised as much, thanks. How do we beat it?”

I grimaced as I tried to wrack my brain for an answer, and found none. “I don’t know; maybe you can short it out somehow. I’m coming do- oh, no.”

I spoke too soon. A simultaneous metal-on metal cacophony sounded from several vessels at the southern end of the fleet, hatches on their decks opening wide as dozens of odd, winged machines took to the air. They looked like a cross between the Falcon flight wings and humanoid drones, and bristled with weapons to match. Several dragon riders broke from the battles along the city’s edge to go after the new deployments, and the sound of gunshots and large projectiles whistling through the air reached my ears.

“Urgh, going to have to scratch that plan Jordan,” I apologized, “I’ve got another threat to deal with. Call General Rickheimer and get him to send assistance. Thor, Aurianna, if you’re still out around the ships, we’ve got a new assignment!”

I flared my wings and banked, letting out a jet of fire that engulfed several of the machines at once, followed by a pulse of lightning that shorted out a couple more. One of them banked a turn sharp enough to give a dragon a run for its money, evading the attack and coming in close to burn a long, painful line across my flank. I instinctively roared in pain before healing the injury over and lunging, getting a good, thorough view of the contraption before I ripped it in two: a complex of moving parts and advanced technological weaponry that confirmed my guess; just like the quinjets, Malin had filched designs from Marvel for several of his ideas.

Thunder echoed through the sky and I looked up to see the grey clouds swirling high above me. The cloudscape lit up like a neon sign from the jagged bolt that arced downward, circling around one of the two Asgard warriors I’d called for. Thor raced past me, a far-too-happy for the occasion grin on his face as he spun Mjolnir in a fast arc and lit up the sky a second time, a spider’s web of electricity dancing between the machines and either shorting them out or making them explode.

“His tricks never end, do they?” he quipped over the din, sending a bolt my direction and charging me up again.

I shook my head as I fired my own shot. “The human imagination is an incredibly vast place I’m afraid,” I answered. “If we don’t strain him he could continue dredging up new evils for quite some time!”

“Then best we figure out how to end this fight swiftly!”

I nodded in agreement and turned with my paws raised, sparks fizzling off them, before stalling at a new sight.

Aurianna I had already known possessed a unique gift; her manipulations of minerals and metals had come in handy for us all more times than I could count. She had been traveling around in the battle using a magnetic field, rushing through the air as easily as most of the dragons could, but now that same field had apparently taken on a new twist: the broken and shattered pieces of Malin’s own weapons were halting in their descent toward the ocean, and rising up toward the woman, twisting and breaking apart further as the field she controlled linked them up together. The result was a rather disturbing mish-mashed semi-humanoid shell of armor that was growing in size by the second.

Aurianna swung one arm and the shell mimicked her movements, a “hand” of sharp metallic edges careening through another of the fliers and shredding it apart, adding to the armor, padding up the arm and turning warheads toward the palm.

“In such a battle it is wise to use the enemy’s weapons against him” she said amusedly, the hand morphing in shape and bringing to bear a gaggle of aggregating projectiles. The magnetic field flexed as she squeezed her own hand into a fist, and they fired, disintegrating two more fliers before Aurianna turned to regard the closest of the ships they were disembarking from. “One sunken ship on order,” she announced, and the floating armor giant dropped through the air, racing down toward the vessel with Thor right behind her, as I took up the job of removing the fliers already in the air alongside the other riders and a couple of jets that had come in alongside us.

Aurianna’s creation slammed into the deck of the ship, bearing the brunt of the hail of bullets that rained up from the infantry on board, and she brought a hand down, the “fingers” punching through the deck and ripping it up. The other hand came down and lengthened, sharpening into a jagged blade that ripped deeper into the ship, tearing it wide open like she was preparing to undergo open heart surgery on it.

A loud gunshot sounded, and suddenly Aurianna found herself being knocked to the side as an explosion ripped against her armor. She rolled and came to stand upright again with the momentum, turning to face the direction the shot had come from; she’d completely missed the mounted turret somehow that was drawing a bead on her already, and she grimaced, activating a new stone on her wristband. Sparks jumped off the armor, and a yellowish halo encircled it as the mortar gun fired a second time.

The explosion ensued like the last had, but the energy froze and the flames redirected, flowing down rivets in the shell and pummeling into the gash Aurianna had already torn into the ship. Seconds later, something beneath her exploded, shaking the vessel from within, and the ship began to tilt, taking on water rapidly and sinking into the sea.

Aurianna directed herself up, and twisted her hand, a section of the deck ripping away and hovering in front of her. She could just barely see the soldier manning the turret cringe at the realization of their position just before she let the debris fly. A lightning bolt from Thor as he came in electrified the metal sheet, erupting in an electrical short-out as it sheared through the turret, shutting down the rest of the ship in a cascade and making it sink ever faster. Another bolt emanated from Aurianna’s brother, and every last man on the deck would no longer suffer the fate of drowning in cold ocean water.

Another mortar slammed into Aurianna’s armor, rocking her off balance before she righted herself and both of them turned their attention to another vessel nearby.

“Round two,” Thor chuckled, pulling a small, shiny object off of his belt (another of Aurianna’s handiworks) and glancing at his sister. She nodded once, and they launched off the deck.

* * *

Loki was having an odd moment, taking a second to consider the position he was in. How he managed to end up on the same street as the twins he’d never know, but at the same time, he would also never admit to anyone that he was also somewhat enjoying himself as he watched them. After all, the three of them were all mischief makers by nature.

This, in turn, did not bode well for the battalion of vehicles making their way through the streets, flanked by men outfitted with particle weapons that none of the Berkians or their allies had ever seen the likes of: tapered spears that stuck out from the soldiers’ packs like the maneuverable legs of an arthropod, twisting and turning as they burned holes into buildings and sliced through street lamps with blinding azure beams.

Tuffnut had made the first move, yelling out bloody murder as he leapt off of Barfbelch and rolled over the top of one of the tanks, dragging the serrated tip of his double-ended spear through the turret mount and immediately drawing the attention of the particle weapon wielders. A shot lanced upward toward the Zippleback still hovering above them, narrowly missing but setting off his barrier as the energy partially bypassed the protection. Shortly thereafter, Ruff somersaulted down to join her brother, standing back-to-back on the side of the tank that Tuff had damaged. They were clearly within range of the particle weapons, but…the soldiers didn’t dare take the shot at them, lest they vaporized the tank behind the two lunatics and killed everyone in the resulting explosion that would occur.

That was when Loki leapt off of the nearby balcony, making his presence known a lot more silently than the twins had as a pair of swords appeared in his hands. He spun through one line of men, taking out three particle weapons and their wielders before a shot from another raced just past his arm, forcing him to dodge the man running up behind him, beam after beam carving into buildings and the cement of the sidewalk.

Loki spun, his black coat flaring outward dramatically, as he flicked up a broken sign at his pursuer with the tip of one of his blades. One beam seared outward, the sign disintegrating, but it had been enough of a distraction; the man looked down just in time to see a throwing dart leave Loki’s hand and bury itself into his chest.

From the opposite direction, another beam suddenly shot out, searing straight through Loki’s middle, the Asgard warrior suddenly freezing, wide-eyed. Slowly, his figure faded to nothing, leaving this new attacker standing puzzled at what had happened to his quarry; either he should have vaporized, or fallen down dead, and neither had occurred.

A second later, something small and metallic answered his question, flying out from the window of a nearby building and clinging to one of the arms of his weapon. The soldier’s eyes widened when he saw a pinpoint of light blink twice in rapid succession, and too late he reached to pull it off.

The device went off, veins of extreme heat racing outward and frying both man and machine, leaving behind nothing but twisted metal and ash.

Loki himself hadn’t leapt onto the street; instead it had just been one of his holograms, fighting with the weapons controlled by Loki’s telekinetic ability. The Guardian himself was watching from nearby, deploying several of the semi-solid holograms around the twins and throwing out another set of the small cylinders that electrocuted the Vikings’ opponents as they went off, freeing Ruff and Tuff to dive into the fray again, attacking under the cover of Loki’s deception.

“AAAAHHHH!!!!!”

Seconds later, Loki realized why Ruff and Tuff had appeared to be leading this attack on their own, as something very large and heavy came careening down a side street, barreling into one of the tanks and knocking it over, sending up a cloud of dust to mingle with the fog above.

Out of the cloud loomed Fishlegs, wild-eyed and swinging a very large hammer and followed by a heavily armored Meatlug who looked like her head-on collision with the similarly armored vehicle had been little more than a romp in the park. Their entrance caused several of the armed soldiers to pause in surprise, and Fishlegs zeroed in on the one facing off with Ruffnut.

“That’s my wife you slug-eating scoundrel!” the burly Viking yelled, launching his hammer and looking mighty pleased with himself as it caught the man in the gut, hard, throwing him into the nearest building and embedding him there.

Ruff grinned at the act, and turned to give Fishlegs a peck on the cheek before spinning around to drive her own spear into the new enemy scrambling around the nearest tank to shoot her.

Fishlegs’ strong point had never been in battle of course, but there was a good reason he’d stayed paired with his wife and her brother: under great stress a trait many Vikings had labeled the “Berserk” state tended to turn on in him, leading him to be as unpredictable as the twins themselves and just as dangerous to face off with. Though he would always attribute his winning Ruffnut over to his personality or having saved her life in the fight against Jezebel, Fishlegs knew the Berserk streak in him was one thing that definitely drew the female twin to his side.

“Loki!” the coms buzzed as Feren called through. “If you’re by the twins get them ready! We’re being routed by the wargs and heading your direction!”

Loki cursed under his breath and finally revealed his true self, teleporting to the top of one of the active tanks and sweeping his hand over the turret. The barrel followed his lead, and with a clench of his fist it fired, driving through the vehicle lines behind the tank and halting any further progress.

“Ruff, Tuff!” he yelled. “Head for the river! We’ve got more coming our way!”

The others nodded and backed up, throwing off a couple of imminent attacks and following Loki as he turned toward the East River, upending a tank behind him to momentarily stall pursuers.

The river was clear of traffic due to the evacuation, but was still shrouded in fog like the rest of the city as the four of them and their two dragons moved out onto a bridge spanning the water. Barely a minute later, unearthly howls echoed through the buildings as the legion of wargs that had been chasing Feren and company made themselves known.

The Macawnivore scaled the side of an empty apartment building as the first of the creatures and the armored soldiers the twins’ team had faced raced off the streets. Then he leapt, tacking the nearest warg and throwing it toward Fishlegs, who caved in its skull with his hammer, before swinging his tail out and driving the Mysteel blades decorating it through the arms of a particle weapon on the nearest soldier.

The big cat barely had a moment to breathe before another warg leapt at him, stalled and driven away slightly by the barrier field but soon landing on his back and throwing Feren off balance, both of them skidding across the pavement.

Twin streams of flame erupted out of the fog above, the liquid fire from the Nightmares hidden within raking across a line of soldiers with more conventional weapons. Loki took the cover fire as a chance to throw in another of his devices, the tiny cylinder exploding into heat veins and intensifying the fires already present. Then, Loki swung out his swords and leapt past the flames, followed closely by the twins.

The wargs were still coming though, two of them pairing up against the slower but no less difficult target of Meatlug as she hovered near Fishlegs, the Viking himself squaring off against another of the beasts. Up above, Thuggory signaled to Snotlout before the two of them both jumped down, right into the path of the weaponized soldiers; the both of them appearing out of seemingly nowhere gave the men pause.

Then the first one fired, deadly beams lancing toward Snotlout…until the Viking heaved up a broken slab of concrete that was at least double his weight and threw it in the path of the beams. Most of the slab vaporized, but several shards survived and kept going, pelting the opposing forces and puncturing vests. Thuggory gained a similar idea, grabbing up the twisted remains of a lamp post that had been taken out earlier and holding it up.

“Hey Snotlout, care to play a little ball?” he called out, swinging the post into the nearest soldier and sending him flying into the river. Snotlout grinned and leapt into the oncoming ranks, picking up the startled men and tossing them toward his partner, each of them meeting the end of the post and either joining the first in the freezing river or disappearing through the windows and hard sides of nearby buildings.

A lucky shot suddenly ripped out of the ranks and struck a glancing blow against Thuggory’s barrier field, the energy shell blocking most of the attack but failing to stop some of the heat. It broiled by, leaving a searing burn across the Viking’s exposed hand. Thuggory yelped in surprise and pain, and lost hold of the post for a moment before looking up in irritation and leaping forward, landing a punch in the chest of the nearest man and throwing him into his comrades behind.

“That was for burning my good hand!” Thuggory snarled. “And this,” he continued lowly, grabbing the post again and bringing it down hard on the dazed men, “is for fighting on the wrong side.”

Leaving the battered lamp where it was, the Viking spotted an abandoned car nearby (somehow still intact) and leapt behind it, picking up the vehicle. “Snotlout, duck!” he yelled as he threw the whole thing. Snotlout, for once, did not look up with a puzzled expression and get clobbered, but instead did the smart thing and dropped flat to the ground as the car sailed past, carrying several of the soldiers surrounding him with it.

“Thanks for the warning!” he yelled back as he picked himself up off the ground, turning to help take down the wargs and enemy infantry still pouring out of the city now that most of the carriers of the particle weapons were down and out for the count.

The entire scene, defenders and offensive, froze as a chilling disembodied laughter swept by, and the air itself seemed to darken for a moment before the feeling moved on. Behind it, however, growls and shrieks began to echo from all around as the black sand Bioraptors that had kept hidden beforehand began to materialize around them.

“Dammit, isn’t there ever a break?!” Snotlout griped, turning and pulling out his hammer and sending it through one of the monstrosities as it sailed down on its unnaturally smooth, sharpened wings.

“It’s war, Snotlout, there’s never rest for the weary!” Thuggory shot back, grabbing the sword on his back as another came his way.

It was Fishlegs though who noticed where the shadow of Pitch seemed to be heading.

“Hawken, we’ve got an issue!” he yelled into his com, hoping the morpher would hear as he looked on toward the island of Manhattan with concern.

“The whole war is an issue Fish!” the reply came back bitingly. “I’m caught up with Valka, Phlegma, and Thor out here against”-

“Pitch has shown himself, Hawken, and he’s headed for the heart of Manhattan! I know Eret and company are over there currently, and Stoick and Odin are leading out the military troops! If he reaches them…”

The threat hung in the air, Fishlegs forced to look away as another warg leapt at him, the burly Viking ducking and landing a glancing blow before the monster turned back to face him.

“Alright, I’m on my way,” Hawken finally replied. “Call up Eret if you can, and the others in the area, and if they can manage then send Hiccup, Toothless, and Amethyst in too. I’m going Shadow!”

Fishlegs nodded to himself, relaying the message as best he could under the pressure of the fight before swinging his hammer again, this time catching the warg that had been dancing around him across the jaw, a shudder-inducing crack sounding from the blow and the monster dropping to the ground. He took half a second to suck in a large breath, winded already, before turning and rolling out of the way of the next opponent.

* * *

Jake, Eret, and Spitfire had been pushed back through the subway tunnels to nearly where Kingsley had been stationed as the Bioraptor swarm grew in its intensity; with each second the atmosphere grew darker, and all four of the fighters could feel entities staring out from within their opponents that were not earthly in nature. Though the monsters were easily destroyed, the sand abominations never seemed to end either, with two appearing with every one that was brought down. They easily got through the force fields, their claws, teeth, and barbed tails meeting Myscale or, in Jake’s case, rock hard scales that even if damaged turned out to be healing at an incredibly rapid rate; the rattlesnake attributed this to his new association with the dragon boy. After all, Hawken seemed to have a propensity to never stay wounded for long, and all of the Descendants (the original or those “adopted in”) carried something normally unique only to the shapeshifter.

The four of them had been fighting outright for a length of time they had long since lost track of, and were deep within the tunnels, a very fair distance away from any decent exit. No good was that when hidden in pitch dark and fighting creatures that gave off only the faintest traces of heat to separate them from the walls of the subway, forcing all of them to rely on what little light was down there and detect outlines against the brick and metal walls instead.

That was when Fishlegs’ relay came in clear to all of them: “Eret, Jake! You guys need to get out of there, Pitch has been detected and is heading your direction!”

“Easier said than done, Fishlegs!” Eret yelled back. “We’re surrounded by Bioraptors and nowhere near an exit!”

“Call for backup then! I know Stoick –AAAHH!! –sorry, I know Stoick is nearby somewhere! I have to go, got my own battle to win!”

The com clicked off, and Eret glanced up at Spitfire, who was crawling across the ceiling. “Alright, let’s move!” he yelled. “The sooner we get out the better –ha!” he exclaimed as he drove his knife through another Bioraptor and jumped past. “Stoick, are you nearby? We need assistance getting out of the subway system!”

There was a moment with no response, before the chief’s voice answered in their ears. “I’ll send a party your way then; we’re holding off okay up here, what’s happening?”

“Bioraptors, and Fishlegs just relayed that Pitch”-

Eret was cut off as something new, and far more powerful, erupted out from the walls, slamming both him and Jake to the ground in one blow. A moment later an unnatural scythe of black cleaved through the air, cutting a deep gash across an unprotected portion of Eret’s arm and sinking through the base of Jake’s tail, twisting hard and sending searing agony up the rattler’s spine as blood painted the walls.

“I’ll leave you here to rot, traitor!” Pitch snarled, before throwing Spitfire and Kingsley across the tunnel by their tails and vanishing.

Jake groaned, turning as the hole in his tail slowly sealed up again and looked up at his comrades. Kingsley would be fine, quick healer that he was like Jake, but Spitfire was suffering from a sprained wing and rear right leg from the toss and Eret’s wound was bleeding profusely.

“Eret, Jake? What happened?” Stoick called in over the com again.

“Pitch attacked, and he just left with all the Bioraptors,” Jake replied, before suddenly swiveling around and blasting one in half. “Most of them anyway. We need Freyja; Spitfire and Eret have been hit badly. We’ll try to make it to an exit.”

The snake moved forward, carefully picking up the injured Changewing and laying him across his back, and then he bent down with his mouth open and hoisted up Eret (despite the man’s protest) and slithered through the darkness of the tunnel as rapidly as he dared, searching for the nearest exit as Kingsley brought up defense to his back.

The Bioraptors turned out to still be more numerous than they’d hoped. Eret was forced to ignore the fact that he was dangling from a rattlesnake’s mouth and instead wielded his knife with his good arm as Jake whipped his tail in a blur to his sides, flattening the creatures within reach and sending bullets through the rest. Kingsley moved to cover Spitfire, the Changewing vulnerable from above as he tried to avoid further injuring his limbs and the cobra lunging like liquid electricity as the demons materialized in every direction around them, frenzied for a kill.

Finally, after what felt like hours (though it would later turn out to only have been a couple of minutes), Jake spotted a station with stairs heading up to the streets above, and turned to slide up the exit. Halfway up, moving lights appeared, materializing as Freyja, Heimdall, and a good dozen military infantry.

Heimdall slipped past Jake as the rattler set Eret down for a moment, joining Kingsley in beating back the swarm, and the tunnel lit up from the flash of the seer’s crackling blade. It swept through the oncoming line of Bioraptors as if they didn’t exist, giving everyone just enough time to back out of the subway altogether and onto the streets.

Freyja immediately focused on Eret, placing her hands on his arm and drawing up power. As she did, the gash under her hands slowly cleared out and sealed up, before the healer ran to Spitfire, who had slid off of Jake’s back in the momentary pause as the snake turned his head to regard Stoick’s approach.

“Hawken’s been called in, most likely te deal with Pitch,” the chief said curtly, “but we need te keep watch around the soldiers if he shows up here again.”

“I know,” Jake quipped back, before looking around. “I know that big park’s nearby; if we head there we might find some open space te use to our advantage.” A glance over to the buildings brought an expression of concern to the snake’s eyes, his mind making him see shadows moving on the walls; while it certainly was within possibility at the moment, the Bioraptors hadn’t made themselves known on the surface again yet. “This place is way too enclosed fer us te have good standing against him, or those vile little monsters of his.”

Stoick nodded in agreement, whistling for Thornado before looking to the soldiers with them. “Well, you heard Jake; to the park, and quickly! Keep yer weapons trained in all directions, the ground included!”

They set out immediately once Spitfire was able to walk again, Eret and Stoick on their dragons as Kingsley and Jake flanked the foot soldiers. The shadows moved, and this time Jake’s eyes were not deceiving him when the darkness erupted with sand abominations again. Shrieks and unholy whispers echoed off the buildings as they leapt for the group with blackened eyes depicting only death.

Gunfire rose up as the soldiers and allies fended off the attacks, moving slowly but purposefully down the street and toward the park, where the inhabitants of shadows would have little advantage.

Grasses and trees finally appeared ahead after only a minute or so, and the group broke into a run down the last legs of asphalt and out into an open meadow, slowing as the Bioraptors seemed to recognize the loss of their advantage. Everyone took a moment to breathe, staying alert as the monstrosities prowled the edges of the city and the thicker trees that lined the further edges of the park, but none seemed intent to make any further moves.

Not that it did any of the fighters any good; seconds later the very earth they stood on darkened several shades, and a swirling vortex of shifting blacks and violets rose up around the Berkians and soldiers. Thornado pushed off the ground, bellowing a roar at one side of the wall as Stoick pointed his borrowed M-16 rifle to the opposite direction.

Neither saw the massive inhuman hand extend out within their blind spot until it slammed them both back to the ground, barrier fields firing at the impact and Stoick sliding off Thornado’s back from the force. The hand retracted as the vortex slowed and coalesced into a towering representation of the aptly-named Nightmare King.

“Put yourselves all in one spot so that you’re easier to snuff out,” he sneered. “I’ll thank you for making my job easier by ensuring your deaths are quick.” The figure’s eyes glowed into existence and turned to Jake, scowling. “Except you; that blow should have been crippling, yet you’re still slithering around to irritate me.”

“Something I picked up from that other irritation that will be the end of you,” Jake hissed, fangs unhinging and his tail rattling.

Pitch didn’t waste any longer on conversation. He coalesced into a more physical form and brought up his hands, his infamous scythe blade forming at a far greater size than normal. A hail of bullets rained upward, but seemed to do no damage at all as the blade swung down.

Another black form did make an impact however, a savage roar reverberating around the clearing as it slammed into Pitch, the scythe vanishing as he went tumbling across the grass. The black-robed man coughed as he staggered to his feet, before turning to face the red-eyed dragon that flared his wings menacingly above Pitch.

“All of you, go!” Hawken yelled as he lunged with his mouth open, bearing rows of fangs. The villain dodged to the side just in time and reformed the scythe in his grip, squaring off with the Shadow Dragon.

The soldiers didn’t hesitate, following the echoed orders of Stoick and Heimdall as they headed deeper into the park, hoping to run into some allies that were supposed to be stationed at the far end of the greenbelt. Behinds them, great gouges were scored into the earth and grass and bushes withered under anthracite fire.

* * *

Indeed, there were others set up in waiting at the distant side of the park, hidden amongst the trees.

Heather gazed through the autumnal foliage, waiting for either something to show up or for a signal from Sarah to move out. On either side of her, Windshear, Embron, and Twintail were hiding, the latter easily camouflaged by his broken pattern and duller colors and the Nightmare somehow still disguised amongst the bright leaves as well by his red and black hide.

“Heather! Heads up, Stoick and his company are heading your direction, Bioraptors on their tail!” Sarah called in over the com.

Heather smiled and nodded to the others of her company, two of them having received the message as well, and the four of them spread out and hunkered down around the western meadow.

A few minutes later, Heimdall broke through the trees first, followed by Freyja, Kingsley, Spitfire, and the others along with the soldiers still in their company. The trees around them shook and rattled as the Bioraptors swept down for the attack, but as the group crossed the open grass the monsters halted inexplicably, backing away and letting their quarry escape without so much as another shriek.

Heather’s internal alarm bells immediately started ringing off the walls at that, and she pulled out the M-250 she’d secured, hopping off of Windshear and holding the war bow at the ready.

“Stoick, stay alert!’ she called. “There’s no way they’re backing off for no reason!”

Stoick nodded his agreement, no stranger to fights and knowing that if one predator had left, something worse was behind. He held his gun up and signaled Jake, Kingsley, and Eret to scan the trees. Any life forms should theoretically have been visible through the infrared vision they were equipped with, unless cloaked by the same capacity as Ember’s Shadowracer, so they would see the hidden threats first.

After a silent minute, the only things the three had detected were the three dragons still on guard in the trees, so Stoick called for a momentary breather, to catch their lost wind and regroup. Half a dozen soldiers posted themselves along the forest’s edge alongside Embron and company as sentries, while the others figured out their next moves.

“Astrid, Cami, Sam, and their charges are tied down to the north with the wargs, Loki and Thuggory and their groups the same along the river, along with the Bioraptors,” Stoick explained, unrolling the map of the metropolis they stood in to coordinate where they stood. “Odin and Sif are out near the edge of Manhattan; most of the other Asgards are fighting along the ocean front. Staten Island has been left relatively untouched compared to Long Island, but I know the US military troops were sent there to secure the coast.”

“Firebomb attacks have been heavy all along the shoreline however,” Freyja amended. “Most of the buildings there are rubble, so Malin’s forces have been moving forward into those areas and setting up shielded bases. We might have what’s needed between us to…Twintail, is something wrong?”

The Zippleback’s two heads had lifted up and turned to scrutinize the forest, Embron and Spitfire soon turning their gazes the same way.

“We’re not alone here anymore,” Twintail said quietly, wings hooding out in an instinctive threat display and both heads bobbing up and down menacingly.

Stoick knew to trust the dragons’ senses, so he gripped his rifle tightly. “Everyone on their feet,” he ordered lowly, and brought a bead up to the trees, finger hovering over the trigger.

“AAAAAAHHHH!!!!”

One of the sentry soldiers suddenly screamed in terror and pain as he appeared to levitate off the ground, before his torso collapsed inward under an immense pressure, holes ripping through him and blood spraying out. Moments later he dropped to the ground, dead, and Heather was the first to spot the bloodstained teeth before they faded again from visibility.

“It’s an animal!” she barked. “Away from the trees, they’re camouflaged! Jake!”

The rattlesnake was already whipping his head around frantically, trying to find something to track. “It’s not giving off any body heat; I can’t see it!” he snapped anxiously, raising his tail to fire but having no target to draw on.

Kingsley slithered forward, nearly unseen in the grass, his tongue flickering away. In the heat of the moment Jake had forgotten the other tracking ability that he had as a snake, but the cobra hadn’t. Near the edge of the trees, he picked up something telltale, and reared up, hood flaring.

“It’s a reptile!” he announced, coiling up and at the ready.

“Kingsley, get back here!” Heather yelled, but the cobra raised the tip of his tail to stay her words. Silence pervaded the field again, save the ever-so-slight vibrations Kingsley was beginning to pick up as well, moving closer; whatever it was, it though it was still the hunter.

A flicker of movement appeared and Kingsley immediately reacted, twisting to the side and striking forward with bared fangs at the camouflaged snout that had come down toward him. The assailant saw the mistake it had made a fraction of a second too late, as when it pulled its head back the cobra’s fangs sank through tough scales and pierced flesh. A single tag, and Kingsley rapidly backed off, knowing the result to come of the toxin he’d delivered and that it was all it would take.

Cryptically patterned scales flushed into view as the creature roared in pain from the venom coursing through it. It was bipedal, with rows of short spikes and protrusions running down from the back of the head to the tail, two muscular arms bearing huge black claws, and powerful jaws lined with rows of crooked, blood-stained teeth.

The grayish toned creature swayed for a moment before the modified Piffleworm-style venom completed its job, all twenty-five feet of reptile falling still and crashing to the ground.

“It’s a dinosaur,” one of the soldiers commented quietly, looking on at the corpse.

“It’s an Indominus,” Kingsley amended, eyes widening from their formerly narrowed state as he turned toward the trees again, backing away.

“What’s an Indominus?” Heather asked worriedly, finger on the trigger of her bow.

“A fictional dinosaur from a recent film,” Embron answered, lines of fire beginning to ignite on his skin. “They can mask infrared, sense it as well as a rattlesnake, camouflage as well as a cephalopod or Changewing, and they’re incredibly intelligent. This one…it’s smaller than the original, meaning it’s more maneuverable, and there’s no way it’s the only one Malin’s set loose.”

As if to prove his point, trees all around them rattled as something moved within them, and chilling growls and roars echoed between the trunks.

The ground shook and Freyja turned, swiping the sword and the blade lengthening in an energy arc in response as she slashed at a second of the reptiles, leaving a shallow gash across its flank but not enough to prevent it from slamming into her, barrier and all, and sending her across the grass with its tail before scattering the soldiers as it charged. A second later it faded from sight again, leaving them all shaken and split apart, and all the more vulnerable for it.

“We need another way to see them!” Heather yelled. “There has to be something they can’t hide…”

Another roar echoed out as she trailed off, an idea sparking in her mind. Readying her bow and leveling it toward the trees, she yelled into her com, “We need the Night Furies in the western end of Central Park, now!”

* * *

Ember and Orha dove down, completely unseen to the ships below them as the Shadowracer flared his wings, preparing for the attack. The force fields shielding the ships were different from their own, requiring a great disruption to breach even at close range.

Ember crouched, and looked down at her dragon. Orhaganuz nodded, and dropped to just above the water. His rider readied her bow, and rolled off.

The second she left Orha’s back, Ember faded into view and weapons trained on her falling form. She braced herself, and the second her feet hit the water it froze, crackling outward in a sheet that the young woman raced across, dodging the energy beams that came down at her and ignoring the bullets ricocheting off her own barrier field. Just ahead, unperturbed by the ship’s field, the ice crashed into the side of her target and frost raced up the side of the metal.

“Orha, Amethyst, any time would be nice!” Ember yelled into the com.

“Yeah, we’re coming!’ Amethyst answered back, and seconds later thunder cracked following a pair of fiery explosions along the side of the vessel. The force field rippled and weakened momentarily, and Ember took her chance, firing an explosive arrow of her own and racing through the flaming hole left behind in the barrier.

Shouts rose up above her as Ember placed her hand against the frosted side of the ship. There were no handholds by which to climb up, but she didn’t need one. Steam rose up as her hands glowed, the metal she pressed against turning red and warping under the extreme heat. Seconds later, a crack raced up, and Ember grabbed her sword and cleaved through the weakened metal, carving a makeshift doorway open that she quickly slipped through.

Inside, she rolled down the wall of the ship, halting for a moment on the floor as she listened for footsteps, or bells, or some other signal that would tell her either someone was coming or where she should go. A racket sounded above her somewhere, and she took off, slamming through a door and into a dim corridor, racing through and checking doorways and halls to look for a way up.

A handful of unarmed ship servicemen dove out of the way as Ember passed, but the warrioress paid them little heed. A better lit causeway ramp provided her an opportunity, and Ember skirted up the walkway, searching for something important to attack.

Finally, a locked door aroused the fire-haired woman’s interest, and after she melted through the steel handle, the sight inside made her grin: the engine room, with growling pipes, cogs, electrical circuits, and all sorts of other tempting targets that were almost certain to cause mayhem if ruined even slightly.

“I hope Cami won’t mind my using a page out of her book,” Ember mused, grinning as she reached into the pocket on her side, pulling out a small explosive not unlike the tips of her more destructive arrows, but designed to be set off remotely by a detonation of said arrows. Ember slipped through the ruined door and planted the bomb at the far end of a circuit board, and then ran back to her exit, squeezing back out and preparing an arrow.

Something slammed into her side, and Ember gasped in surprise more than pain (her barrier had protected her from most of the blunt force) as her bow slipped from her hands and she hit the floor. She kicked hard, dislodging the assailant before rolling and standing up to get a good look at him. He was clearly a serviceman, mostly unarmed but carrying a radio which he quickly turned on and yelled into.

“We’ve got a breach on deck three, engine room! Backup needed now!”

A knife appeared in his hands as he stood up as well, the blade switching out as he lunged. Ember dodged with ease before grabbing the man by the arm holding the knife, twisting and ignoring his yell as he dropped the weapon.

“Sorry,” she said reflexively, right before the man screamed in agony, his arm freezing under Ember’s touch and the ice quickly spreading. Moments later Ember let go, looking away as the man-turned-popsicle fell backward, cracking upon hitting the metal causeway, and she grabbed up her bow again and pulled the arrow back into place. The door was still open, and she swung to take aim into the engine room. Letting out a breath, she let the arrow fly and immediately turned to run further up the ram, not looking back.

The reaction was instantaneous, the ship shuddering under foot as the explosion ripped through the engines and circuits, and the lights all around flickered and went out. Ember was unbothered, her hair heating up and glowing to provide light (and a disturbingly ethereal image to any more servicemen she ran past) as she dashed through another door and found a set of stairs leading topside. She raced up them, passing two more decks before reaching a door that appeared to lead outside.

As Ember lunged for the knob, the ship shuddered again as another explosion threw it off kilter, and it didn’t right itself this time as the metal buckled underfoot. For a moment Ember lost her balance and a second of panic flashed through her, before she grinned and remembered: this was why she’d come aboard after all, and there were plans in place for unexpected holdups. Her attack had likely lowered the field’s defenses, and Orha and Amethyst had taken advantage immediately.

“Orha, I’m coming out so you’d better be ready!” Ember yelled into her headset, before planting her feet on the sloping metal and yanking the door open, leaping out the door. Years of being on the run followed by the hectic life in Berk (voluntary and otherwise) kept her even-footed now on the corrugated and angled surface, giving her an edge over the arms-bearers around her who attempted to bring their weapons to bear on her.

A Piffleworm arrow whistled through the air, and pierced through three men before Ember reached the side of the ship. A shimmer appeared in the air ahead of her and she jumped, Orha catching her and the two speeding off immediately.

Ember glanced back as a familiar whistle built up, and Amethyst’s diving form blew over the ship’s deck, electricity crackling as the Night Fury fired one last blow that ripped through the ship and permanently sealed its fate. Amethyst then glided up next to Ember and Orha with a concerned expression.

“Hawken called in, Toothless and I are needed in the city,” she explained. “You two might be of help as well, since this is apparently a threat with camouflage capabilities.”

Ember grimaced, looking back at the fleet. “If we don’t keep someone covering here, the jets will overtake the other riders. If we get a break somewhere I’ll come help, but –LOOK OUT!!!”

The three of them scattered as a ball of fire erupted from one of the ships below, next to the vessel they’d sunk. It flew past and slammed into the growing border of rubble along the coast, followed by dozens more sailing through the air.

“Change of plans,” Ember quipped, pressing her headset. “All riders near the fleet, retreat now and focus on the city! Heavy fire underway!” Lowering her hand, she glanced at Amethyst. “Let’s go.”

* * *

“Nara, come on!” Holly yelled urgently. “We’ve got a clear shot while he’s distracted!”

“Not while the wargs are in the way; you’ll never get close enough without one of them jumping up and bringing you both down!” Cami cut in, sweeping by and pulling out one of her special capsules (the gifts from Loki she now treasured). She and Stormfly dove toward a battalion of the monsters attempting to skirt around behind the defending infantry on foot, and the Viking threw the capsule down as hard as she could. Seconds later it exploded, knocking out or dazing the wargs. Nara flew down right behind her and Holly finished them with a sweeping hand full of Piffleworm darts.

“Fine; then what about the raptors?” she queried back. “Can any of you guys get in?”

“Tied up at the moment, Holly!” Silas replied first, and Holly glanced down to see him pinned under one of the creatures, both of them snapping desperately in an attempt to reach the other’s neck without risking their own. Nara saw him too, and a quick snap of her tail sent a spike whizzing down, impaling the warg and allowing Silas to get up and drive his claws into another already leaping his way.

A flaring of her field drew Holly’s attention down a side street, where troops were marching in and threatening to overtake the men with her mother and father. One of them had taken a shot at her, and Holly scowled as she leaned down.

“Nara, into that building there. We’re gonna see if we can get in a good scare.”

Nara nodded and flared her wings, banking hard and diving into a broken window, landing inside. Holly unclipped herself and slid off, running down the hall to another window overlooking the column.

“Holly! What do you think you’re doing?” Nara hissed, following anxiously behind. Holly grinned and checked her gloves, before silently sliding the window open.

“Nothing much, I’m just going to be myself,” she replied cheekily, and leapt out.

The soldiers below were not expecting what they were presented with an eye-blink later. Holly came hurtling down, rolled across the ground in a practiced move and standing up with a wild look on her face, yelling maniacally the whole time.

“YYAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!”

A moment of stillness passed as the men tried to comprehend the sudden and unorthodox introduction of this young teenager that was now staring at them like she’d lost her mind. Just as suddenly, Holly’s expression morphed in an instant to a perfectly enthusiastic, faux-sweet smile.

“Hi!” she exclaimed, reaching up with both hands and pulling something off her back. A flick of her wrists and the stacked throwing knives went sailing, impaling the men deep and causing chaos to erupt immediately. Holly leapt forward as gunfire rang out again, grabbing the knives she could retrieve with ease and sending them flying again before pulling out the sword in the scabbard at her side, sweeping it in a wide arc around her.

Nara showed up moments later, landing on top of several men and releasing a jet of flames through the column, fire rising high as it caught on their vests and the flammable bits of rubble around them.

“You’re insane Holly!” the Nadder yelled.

“Duh!” the teenager yelled back, the manic grin already plastered on her face again. The sword in her hands spun and took out another three soldiers and several guns, cleaving through the metal stocks and barrels like they were made of warm butter.

Nara took flight again and put her claws down, raking the ranks and grabbing one soldier straight off the ground to throw into his comrades. Then she turned and squawked in alarm: a warg was maneuvering down the alley toward Holly, right in the teen’s blind spot. The dragon dove, just a little too far when the mutant wolf leapt, jaws wide open.

Holly spun and sent a dart flying, impaling the warg in the forehead mid-jump and sliding to the side with an almost unnatural grace as it collapsed forward under its own momentum. Her attention flicked toward the other end of the battle for a moment, flashes of the other present fights for dominance catching her eye before she went back to her own focus.

Indeed, the struggle between Astrid, Zipeau, and their shared opponent was fiercely underway. Shen, being a bird and additionally a tactician of war, was light on his feet and fast, calculating. Astrid was gifted with speed and agility, Zipeau with technological genius and the know-how to use his own weapons, but the white peacock continued to stay a set match for the pair, even with bullets flying through the air around them.

The bird swung his glaive and parried the Mysteel sword in Astrid’s hand in an expert move that flung the blade directly into the path of Zipeau’s own energy-wielding baton, making the two of them stumble just long enough for Shen to spin his weapon and cut down another attempted shot from Sam across the intersection.

“We can go about this all day long,” Shen drawled, balancing his weapon in his wing as he carefully watched his opponents.

“And we will if we have to,” Astrid snapped back in reply. Her axe spun and caught the tip of the glaive, and she moved with the swing, turning and landing a kick to the center of the staff, making Shen stagger back. Zipeau stepped in at the opening and swung his baton down, the energy blade flashing out and cutting open a gash in Shen’s until then still-immaculate robe. Unsurprisingly, the feathers underneath were laced with armor, but Zipeau didn’t hesitate, continuing in his momentum and spinning to bring the blades lining his tail down.

Shen reacted quickly, dropping backward off the small pile of rubble they had stood on and grabbing the dinosaur’s tail between the blades, throwing Zipeau smack into Astrid. Both of their fields flared as they collided, preventing serious injury and making sure they stayed on their feet, but it gave Shen the opportunity he needed to get up and spread his wings and tail wide, leaping upward and gliding through the broken window of a nearby building.

“Dammit!” Astrid spat sharply, picking herself up and sprinting toward the building. “Zipeau, come on! We can’t let him get away!”

The Stenonychosaurus grunted as he reoriented himself, swinging his arm out and taking out an incoming warg with another of his exploding projectiles before following. “Won’t he have the upper hand inside?” he queried concernedly.

“Only if we let him!” Astrid quipped back, already slamming the hilt of her axe into a window and leaping through.

It was an average run-of-the-mill office building, darkened thanks to the ruined electrical system, and echoing from the battle outside. Astrid slipped along the desk cubicle-lined corridor to a doorway marked with a stairwell image, yanking it open and treading as lightly as she could up the steps. Zipeau came in behind her, loading the arm-cannons in preparation. They turned the corner, coming up to the door entering the next floor, and Astrid held her axe out in front of her as she kicked it open.

Silence met them, only the sight of Thorn watching worriedly outside the window. The Nadder tipped her head upward, and Astrid quickly scaled the next flight of stairs, kicking that door open as well. A single metal-edged white feather greeted her as it floated to the ground, but not the owner of said feather.

A loud call of a peacock sounded from above, and both Viking and dinosaur ran to the broken window and glanced up just in time to see Shen take flight from several floors further up, gliding with his great fan of feathers down the street just under the fog and disappearing around the corner. Several incoming battalions of wargs followed suit, and Astrid groaned in frustration.

“Thorn! Come on, we need to catch him!’ she called, and the Nadder drifted over in preparation to receive Astrid and Zipeau on her back before Sarah’s voice sounded a negative on the move.

“Shen’s gone out of functioning camera range Astrid, we’ve lost track of him. Help the others keep driving the remaining wargs back, and we’ll keep looking to see if we can find him.”

“He can’t be that far off though, and he’s got a bunch of the ugly wolves following him!”

“There are wolves well to the south of you too, so that won’t help narrow things down. And Hawken’s tied up in Central Park with Pitch so we need to keep tabs on the bordering battles like yours, so he doesn’t have distractions.”

“I’m heading in!” Holly now yelled over the com lines. “I’ll provide backup for my brother, everything else is mostly holding here as long as Astrid comes back down!”

“Holly, no!” Astrid yelled. “Pitch is”-

“Pitch isn’t expecting a thirteen-year-old teenager with perfect aim to show up when he’s already fighting Hawken. He’ll focus completely on my brother and I might be able to get a shot in. I’m heading in and I have Nara to back me.”

Astrid jumped on Thorn anyway, Zipeau grabbing hold behind her, and they turned to try and halt the exit of the unpredictable teenager, but Holly and Nara had already sped off through the concrete jungle and vanished in the fog; with the head start they had, the other Nadder was never going to catch up either.

Astrid groaned and directed Thorn downward again, the two passengers leaping off onto the backs of a pair of enemy soldiers that had come in to fight with the wargs. Zipeau swung his baton, clearing a path just enough for Astrid to slip by a particularly tight spot, and the latter headed for Sam and Denise.

“I’m sure you just heard, but Holly’s run off to try and help fight Pitch,” she explained, her axe whiling and keeping space so they could talk. The girl’s parents were unsurprisingly not all that enthusiastic about the news.

“What?!” Denise exclaimed. “That monster is nearly a match for our son, let alone”-

“I know!” Astrid cut in forcefully, before wincing. “Sorry. I know, but you guys I am certain know what you own daughter is like. God forbid she managed to gain Camicazi’s recklessness”-

“I heard that!” the other blonde yelled as she blazed by, Stormfly barreling through several of the mutant wolves as her scales blushed midnight blue and opening up a space for the US infantry to fire.

“I know!” Astrid yelled back, before turning to the Carlton parents again. “Anyway, but she’s not stupid, and like we’ve seen she does seem near-incapable of missing her targets. Stay on her frequency, and if something’s really going wrong we’ll all try to head in to cover her. I know Heather’s nearby that region, and the Night Furies will be soon as well. Something about Malin’s version of the Indominus if Sarah’s relay earlier was correct.”

The warrioress cut off her conversation and slammed an armored elbow back into the snout of a charging warg, staggering the beast before she turned around and thrust her sword forward, gutting it. In a sudden, revived flurry of battle, Sam swung his AK-47 past her and took out a second leaping in behind the first, before pointing his arm along the side of the building they were against.

“Let’s get around the crowd, look for a new vantage point on this situation. Astrid?”

Astrid grinned and somersaulted away, axe flying out to clear a pathway for them to follow. Sam shook his head in morbid amusement at the display before leveling his weapon outward again to keep Astrid’s path cleared as they all marched toward a clearer section of street, hoping to finally gain a real upper hand in this fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the longest chapters I've written, but lengthy installments like this have become more commonplace as my writing has progressed...sometimes a section of a story just isn't finished until it's pushing well past the 10-15 page or so average I seem to have.  
> Also: my sister's character honestly is one of my favorites. Nutty, unpedictable, and sassy enough it's hard to tell when she's being serious and when the fight is just a big joke to her.


	30. An Upper Hand

_Tricks and illusions_

_The feinted plan_

_Falsehoods often_

_Gain the upper hand_

_The good do not_

_Always win their own_

_Battles drive_

_The daggers home_

The coastline of the city had been reduced to all but a landscape of rubble, torn asunder by the ever-increasing array of projectiles that sailed in from the ships. Fires burned in blinding conflagrations, and the buildings that still stood threatened to crumble at any second, ravaged by holes and cracks as they were.

The order had been given for the dragon riders and jets to pull back from the fleet due to the danger of flying amongst the aerial attacks (as Jake had found, powerful and effective as their barriers could be a large explosion negated the protection), so now the foot soldiers at the edge of the chaos zone were the first line of defense, backed up by the dragons above that were maneuverable enough to evade the projectiles that came in this far.

Sasha watched the flier drones engaging with the riders above him as well as several of the men in the gathering forces he directed; Teshra was taking advantage of the squabble, planting herself directly in the paths of the drone weapons and absorbing the energy of their shots to fire it straight back, while Valka, Bertha, and the other riders did their best to take out the aerial machines before they broke past to level the ground-based troops.

The whistle of an RPG bought Sasha’s attention back down to earth, the tiger’s ears swiveling in the direction of the noise and his body following, spinning out of the way as his paw kicked up a broken piece of asphalt, launching it into the weapon’s path. Shrapnel from the ensuing explosion bounce harmlessly off of his field, and the tiger leapt forward, two bounds bringing him to land on the battle-scarred woman who had fired the grenade. She immediately attempted to hit him with the barrel of the now-empty launcher, but a cat’s reflexes far outmatch any human’s (save maybe a certain pair of gifted Vikings) and Sasha dodged the attack with ease. Turning with his momentum, he whipped his tail upward, the spikes in the armor along its length impaling the woman and dropping her in a breath. The tiger turned and let out a roar now that the immediate threat was down, and behind him friendly forces surged forward, taking advantage of the scattered rubble as they dodged incoming bullets and fired their own.

“So, what’s the situation up here?”

The new voice brought Sasha to turn and greet the other part of the directing party; Hogun walked up, a double pair of thin, ornate sai daggers twirling in his hands, and Sif and the other Asgard family members followed right behind him, gearing up for another hard round in the scarred rubble surrounding them.

“Ground forces are moving in from several directions, converging here,” Sasha began. “Staten Island and Queens are heavily damaged by the artillery fire. Teshra’s using the drones’ weapons to our advantage, but we’ve got the ground troops to deal with here ourselves. Ready?”

“Always,” Sif quipped back, drawing her double blade. Sasha grinned and crouched, leaping forward with the Asgard warriors right at his tail.

The new waves were heavily armed and coming in prepared, setting down in the lanes where the ships weren’t firing (a pattern that changed every few minutes) and offloading from subs and the quinjets. Men and women armed with Uzis and A1s were flooding in and fanning out through the rubble, covering others who were loaded down with RPGs and LAWS rockets.

It was these latter weapons Sasha was most concerned with, as he’d picked up Sarah’s relay loud and clear about Jake’s experience with the explosives, and how they were more than capable of delivering a punch. If they managed a successful bead on any of the dragons, the concussion waves alone could topple them, and then the drones would be free to dive in as well.

Coming up over a ridge that used to be the foundation of a McDonald’s (no longer a source for happy meals), Sasha spotted a woman of European-looking descent setting up a rocket launcher, ringed by defending soldiers. He slunk around the side of the rubble pile, preparing to pounce, when a gunshot echoed through the landscape and the bullet ricocheted off his field, the flash of red alerting his quarry.

The woman immediately whirled and pulled out not a gun but a knife as Sasha jumped, the tiger clearing the ring of soldiers and kicking them away as he slashed at the woman. She slashed back in a wide arc as she just barely dodged being flattened, but missed; now, however, they were in close enough range that Sasha knew his field would be of nearly no effect. The blade came back in and he twisted out of the way as it arrived too close, aiming for the openings between the pieces of his armor.

A human, no matter how skilled (again save perhaps a certain pair of Vikings) is never a match for a big cat, even in close range. As the knife withdrew again so the woman could reorient and attack, Sasha slashed out with his paw, knocking the weapon from her hand and the weight of the blow audibly fracturing a bone or two, eliciting a scream of pain. Then he moved in closer and brought his other paw into the side of her head. A sickening crack echoed, making the tiger’s stomach turn (predator he was, taking someone’s life is not pleasant), and the enemy dropped, neck broken and body lifeless.

“Sarah, got a rocket launcher over here if you want to send in a force to retrieve it,” he relayed in, turning his head to look at the weapon instead of the casualty, before ducking and rolling as the soldier with the gun who hadn’t been knocked out by Sasha’s entry opened fire again. It was more instinctive reflex than anything, the bullets unable to penetrate the field, but it put the tiger behind a rubble pile that led him right up behind the soldier. Without a suitable blade on his person, this one fared even worse against the big cat.

Sif swung in to a secluded corner produced by the rubble nearby, her double-bladed sword spinning in her hands as the trio of men hidden there brought their guns to bear on her a second too slowly. Iron barrels failed miserably under the Mysteel blades the warrioress wielded, rendering the weapons useless to those who held them, before Sif demonstrated just how much worse Kevlar and skin held up.

As the three men slumped at her feet, she whirled and headed back out through the maze of collapsed structures. “Volstag, Fandral, have you located the whereabouts of the offloading vehicles?” she asked into her headset.

Static answered for a couple seconds, before Fandral’s voice replaced it. “There’s a harbor here, mostly untouched, about 300 yards from where we headed in. Lots of –whoa! - lots of gunfire here, couple of those RPG weapons they briefed us about. Sasha, do you copy as well?”

“Understood!” the tiger replied, and Sif smirked at the almost jovial tone of his voice; he was a good actor, as she knew this kind of experience was not really an amusing affair. While she was all for a good fight, the constantly perky attitude of the big cat was only outmatched by that girl Camicazi and the Terror that Sasha always seemed to be traveling with.

Sif headed out immediately, blades whirling as she deflected gunfire and cut down incoming enemy infantry. A single drone managed to drop down past the dragons above them and fired at her, forcing the warrioress to dodge the beam she knew her barrier wouldn’t deflect, before a savage roar cut through the air and Sasha slammed into the machine above her, dragging it to the ground and rendering it useless as his armored claws sunk deep through the metal. As soon as the “eyes” stopped flickering, indicating full loss of power, Sasha looked up.

“Alright, let’s move in,” he said. “Soldiers fanning out around us, Teshra will cover from above.”

Sif nodded, and they both took off in a sprint.

The harbor indeed looked nearly untouched, or it would have if both sides hadn’t managed to meet up right at the shoreline. While the rest of the New York coastline smoked like a caldera and still fell under the rain of bombs and fireballs Malin’s ships were hurling, here the docks, warehouses, and other trademark structures stood intact and only now were being scarred and perforated by the ravages of war.

Hogun had taken up a stance near an abandoned forklift, sais flashing viciously as he held off advances by the men swarming out of a submersible vehicle. Nearby one of the remaining quinjets was being held up from offloading and taking off by the dual pressure of Volstag and Fandral, who were using not only their axes and swords, respectively, but utilizing the various objects lying around the dock such as crates, hooks, and ropes as makeshift weapons and projectiles.

As Sasha and Sif arrived, the invading forces redoubled their efforts, several learning not to rely so heavily on their guns but instead their explosives and close-quarters blades. Sif smirked as one man came at her with a pocketknife, apparently all he could scrounge up at a moment’s notice, and the soldier quickly found out that fighting the Asgard family was not the same as battling it out with other half-trained military deserters.

She wasn’t ready yet to kill the man, however; instead, as she grabbed his now bleeding arms and pinned them behind his back, holding him immobile, Sif began searching his mind. Her telepathic skill was not like that in stories, capable of picking out words and concrete ideas, but generalized images and notions were readily retrieved.

What Sif found inside the soldier’s head disturbed her greatly; they knew this unloading point would draw in the opposing forces. When the quinjet suddenly closed up and took off, blowing even its own infantry to the ground with the engine backwash, that confirmed her fear, and she quickly dispatched her captive before scrambling to reach her other nearby family members.

“Retreat now!” she yelled frantically. “Fandral, Volstag! They know that we’re going to be here! It’s a trap!”

The vibrating, whistling noise of an incoming aerial sealed any doubts. Everyone near the harbor double-timed in their scramble to vacate the area, the four Asgards and two Descendants at the scene leaping to take cover behind a half-standing docking station as the missile hit.

The concussive explosion ripped apart the ground they had been standing on moments before, and shards of metal, concrete and, sickeningly, the slower soldiers, caused their barrier fields to flare almost continuously in the bombardment of debris. As soon as it began to die down slightly they were all up and running again, putting as much space as they could between the shoreline and themselves, deflecting shrapnel and the occasional stray bullet that came their way as they leapfrogged through the rubble.

Then it happened.

They were all focused forward, Sif and Sasha fronting the charge away from the docks, with Hogun to Sasha’s left and Volstag and Fandral to Sif’s right side. Fandral ducked past a falling piece of asphalt and came around the corner of a rubble pile, slightly separated from the others, and something rammed into him from the side, hard and fast. His field flared for a moment, but whatever hit him held on as they plowed into the ground, twisting to entangle around his front and neck.

Fandral contorted to bring his sword to bear, but the young woman who had managed to pin him was faster this time, drawing a dagger even as they fell and quickly plunging the blade between two pieces of his armor, driving it as deep as it would go.

“My regards to the rest of your allies,” she hissed in a truly foreign accent, twisting the knife before withdrawing it and whirling around to disappear into the growing cloud of dust and debris, but not before kicking Fandral in the face as she leapt away. Fandral lay there, suddenly unable to draw the strength to move even an arm as pain blossomed in his side and chest, the fatal wound sapping his life away bit by bit.

“FANDRAL!!!”

Sif was the first to see him, having looked back to ensure everyone was with her, and as she skidded to a halt and scrambled toward her brother, the others slowed, slack in shock.

Sif threw a desperate dagger in the direction Fandral’s attacker had fled, missing by a wide margin as she fell to her knees next to the wounded warrior.

“No, no, Fandral stay with me, hold on!” she blustered, picking up his head and leaning him toward herself. Reaching up to her headset, she yelled desperately, “Does anyone copy? We need a medic or a healer by the docks in Queens now! Fandral is down, the wound is bad!”

She scrambled to unclip his chest armor, pulling it off to get a better look and apply pressure to the gash in his side, her mind turning frantic. As Hogun and Volstag came in next to her to help, Teshra flared her wings and used the energy she’d been storing to erect a barrier above them while Sasha circled on guard beyond.

Fandral, though, knew he wasn’t going to make it out, and with what little strength he still held onto, he reached up to grasp his sister’s hands and still them.

“Sif,” he wheezed, “prom-promise me you’ll keep taking care of the others. We both know if this…this war ends in favor of the other side, both our earths will be under threat.” He shakily pushed his swords toward his adopted brother. “Hogun, I…I trust you with my blades, use them well, and Volstag? I…I am sorry I never paid back that bet.” He smiled wistfully and gave a chuckle that devolved into a weakened cough as the larger man shook his head in denial.

“No, no, you’re going to make it,” Volstag insisted, gently grasping Fandral’s arm. “Forget that bet, you’ll live te win another, you hear me?”

Fandral shook his head. “They won’t get here in time, brother, and you know it to be true. Keep up the fight, and don’t…don’t…”

The light left his eyes slowly, his already frail grip slackening completely. As his hands fell from Sif’s and Volstag’s grasps. Sif sucked in a breath, trying and failing to stop the tears that welled up in her eyes, before her head snapped up at a flicker of movement in the distance: the woman who’d stabbed her brother leaping between piles of rubble amidst the dust as she moved away from them. Sif’s eyes narrowed as she stood up, an entirely different emotion sweeping away the agony as she picked up her dropped sword.

“Volstag, stay with him,” she growled. “Hogun, with me. Now.” Into her com, she snapped, “Fandral has been slain; I am moving after the responsible party as we speak.”

Chatter erupted on the line as the other members of her family reacted to the sudden, jarring news, but Sif simply shut off the feed as she focused on her target, the edges of her vision tainting an almost tangible crimson as she and Hogun stepped past Teshra’s protective barrier.

The soldier she was after was still skirting between the rubble piles, her cropped dirty blonde hair shaking slightly with each jump. Sif closed about half the distance between them before she noticed the two Asgards pursuing her, and immediately the woman took off into a run as best she could over the treacherous ruin.

Sif, however, had grown up in a world without roads, and filled with life-threatening footholds. Within thirty seconds she’d caught up to her target, and her double blade whirled with deadly intent, the air around it screaming.

The foreign woman ducked under the first blade with a practiced skill and whipped the same dagger she’d used on Fandral out, intent to block the second edge coming in behind the first.

Instead, the steel dagger fared about as well as substances usually do against Mysteel and its properties; the stainless steel cleaved like softened soap and clattered uselessly to the ground, leaving the soldier nearly defenseless. She leapt back and found a new footing, pulling out her pistol to fire a point-blank shot that ricocheted first off Sif’s armor and then bounce off Hogun’s field, the latter having now caught up. The Oriental turned his attention to a handful of other infantry coming to the aid of their compatriot, as Sif towered over the woman.

The Asgard warrioress leapt forward with a kick that the soldier dodged, and then the woman ducked as Sif’s blade followed behind and shattered the concrete slab behind her. Taking advantage of Sif’s momentary imbalance, the blonde let loose her own kick, aiming for Sif’s middle. Sif took the blow however, absorbing most of the impact in the Mysteel she wore and sliding back with the rest, and at the same time bringing her elbow down onto the woman’s knee, dislocating it and bringing her to fall forward. As she did, Sif snaked her hand forward and grabbed her around the neck, squeezing hard and cutting off the woman’s air supply.

“This is for my brother!” Sif roared, and with her free hand released her sword from the broken rubble and plunged one of the blades forward. It drove deep, piercing straight through and into the asphalt slab behind the female soldier, and her eyes went wide from the sudden pain and realization.

“Give my regards to Satan when you see him,” the Asgard warrioress continued, and wrenched her sword back out, letting the secondary blade collapse as she impassively watched the woman slump to the ground, the light fading rapidly from her eyes as it had her victim’s before it sputtered out completely.

Hogun sidestepped by as he cut down the nearest soldier, before glancing worriedly at Sif; in the mood she was now in, any suggestion could be taken with hostility, but she could not continue standing there in an immobile state lest they lose her too. “We must keep moving out of here,” he urged. “Malin will not stop the attacks just because all the harbors are destroyed; we’re vulnerable here.”

Sif’s gaze lingered on the dead woman for a moment longer, before she nodded, still stony. “We will retreat into the next line of intact buildings,” she replied coldly, “and regroup there while we determine what to…what to do with Fandral until the war is over.”

Hogun nodded, leaping out of the way of an RPG before holding his hand out to Sif. She took it, deftly ignoring his knowing look as they made their way back to where Volstag still stood over their fallen brother, shielded under Teshra’s barrier.

“We need to pick him up and move,” Sif ordered, focusing on duty so that she wouldn’t lose her attention to her loss, much as it pained her. “Hogun, Volstag, carry him, and Sasha, will you help me keep the path clear?”

“No problem,” the tiger replied, looking up to his own “sibling.” “Teshra, let’s move out! If you see anything really concerning from up there, burn it or tell us immediately!”

The Terror flapped twice, her barrier breaking down, and then rocketed westward, the group below her following as best they could. The US forces had taken heed of Sif’s warning transmitted via the general at the com station and cleared out, leaving only them surrounded by enclosing rival forces. To their backs, explosions still rose up as the vessels further out resumed their bombardment of the coastline, and the soldiers that had unloaded before the defending forces arrived had dug in around the ruins, setting up grand weapons that they now turned on the five fighters and their fallen brother.

The massive mounted machine guns rising from the rubble would mow down unprotected soldiers, yet do nothing to those with barrier fields, but Teshra quickly spotted weapons that did pose a significant threat: ground-based rocket launchers, bazooka barrels, and worse. She grimaced, and dove down to flare her wings in the path of an incoming missile head from such a weapon; it detonated early, and the Terror redirected the raging flames back to the source, lighting up the ground like a bonfire and taking out nearly a dozen men.

“We’ve got a clear path for a moment; let’s move!” she yelled, and Sif and Sasha took point as they hurried through the landscape. Several violent minutes later, they made it into the first intact buildings (or, mostly intact), passing several blocks before taking refuge inside an abandoned department store. Moving into the central sections, they collapsed against each other, soldiers on their side apparently having taken a similar notion and a few injured dragons and riders following as well. Volstag and Hogun carefully lowered Fandral to the floor, and the surrounding situation finally hit them full force as they caught their breaths.

“We…we have to take care of him,” Hogun murmured, fighting back tears. “But there’s no way safely through the city back to the base unless we can get one of the dragons to help, and they cannot be spared.” He glanced at a Meathead warrior nearby tending to a particle burn on his Moldruffle, and sighed. “We may…we may have to find a place for him here, temporarily, until the war dies back.” Seeing the faces of those around him, Hogun felt as if he were simply digging the blade deeper by bringing up such a dire prospect, and his tears escaped the dams that had been his eyes; that was the hand they had been dealt.

“Notice to all forces,” Sarah’s voice suddenly rang in through the coms, “experienced riders requested to patrol the coastal grounds until Hawken and others are free to counter fire by the ships. Radar has also picked up a nor’easter storm swinging west of its originally predicted course, expected to make landfall here in eight hours or less. Prepare for retreat to wait out the storm if possible or find shelter and prepare to ride it out. Supplies and reinforcements have been mobilized.”

They all looked at each other. “Well, I guess that’s our call for time to retreat and prepare,” Sasha said quietly. “If we can at least reach where Gobber and Spitelout were stationed up in the Bronx, we can probably find a dragon to carry Fandral back to the portal.”

Sif nodded, glancing between her two living brothers, before she moved to pick up Fandral herself. “The sooner, the better then,” she decided. “We move out now.”

* * *

Jordan would have readily noticed the change in pressure around him had he not been so focused on not being caught by the powerful claws of the Leviathan surging through the water beneath him and Tohar. The energy beam it had fired off was a powerful weapon wielded that the Oceanguard had no interest in being hit by; he’d felt the waves of energy rippling off of it even from a hundred feet away. A direct shot would likely mean instant death, short-circuiting powers or no.

The Leviathan was a laughable creation compared to the true Biblical beast Jordan had had rare visions of, but the oversized lobster certainly wasn’t laughable in the face of battle. As fast as Jordan was, he was shocked at how quickly the machine moved through the water, a veritable mobile city’s worth of metal. A dozen legs scrabbled along the sea floor kicking up gigantic clouds of sediment that obscured vision, and the fanned tailfin swept immense volumes behind it as the thing surged toward them, claws wide and tentacles preparing to fire.

Tohar dodged a claw and slammed his armored tusks up toward the offending appendage. He had limited capability to fire ice, so he was trying to be selective in his shots, but unfortunately little else had proven in any manner effective, as his tusks once again missed the now retreating claw. Almost immediately afterward, he felt the water churn as the creation fired, a narrow miss right over his tail that took out an incoming submarine.

The Bewilderbeast’s eyes widened, realizing it had been an ally craft and not the lackeys of Malin, who were wisely hanging back from the monstrosity to allow it to do the dirty work.

<Jordan! Forces on our side are arriving, but they are not fast enough to evade attacks from the Leviathan!>

The serpentine reptile nodded, swerving over the Leviathan’s undulating back and ripping gashes in the surface with his spines as he headed for slightly more open water, hoping to gain a moment to tap into the nearby subs’ coms. He’d done it once already to Malin’s system temporarily, but it took a lot of concentration, and a heavily channeling of his abilities.

A static buzz over his own com told the Oceanguard he’d succeeded, and Jordan immediately relayed, “Sub crews! Keep wide of the Leviathan, your rafts are not maneuverable enough to avoid attack! Take open shots if you can get them but otherwise plan for engagement with enemy submarines!”

He had no time to listen for a reply or continue before the water pressure around him shifted again, and he twisted his body violently to avoid the claw slamming closed a hair’s width from him. The machine’s red optic lenses tightened and focused on him, both claws now coming in from two directions to corner the reptile.

Jordan had lived for a millennium however, avoiding the detection of a calculating sorceress queen and numerous budding civilizations, so he was ready when the serrated edges snapped toward him.

Surging forward, the Oceanguard weaved between the appendages and dove downward, sliding underneath the monstrosity and flipping upside down. The armor and joints where the legs and tail connected to the main body of the machine spun and worked above him as it tried to turn around after him, but Jordan held his position underneath. Picking one particular attachment point, he darted forward, looping around the base of a leg and whipping his tail upward, fins flared to their maximum extent. The Mysteel lining it cut deep into the Leviathan, the painful sound of metal shearing through metal reverberating through the water.

The machine reacted instantaneously, jerking away and catching Jordan’s side with a kick from another leg, but the damage was already done; the severed appendage sparked and sizzled as it fell through the water to rest far below on the seabed.

The Leviathan went berserk, metal limbs flailing haphazardly in the water and its tail whipping forward, slamming into Jordan and, barrier and all, stunning the Oceanguard hard enough to send him to the seafloor. Then it whipped around and drew a bead on the dazed reptile, the tentacles around its “head” drawing together and charging, preparing to fire.

Seconds before the beam lanced out, Tohar rammed into it from the side, tusks gouging the metal but doing little other damage. However, his intent was successful: the particle beam ripped up the sediment just above Jordan’s head rather than hitting dead on. Sediment kicked up in great clouds, giving Jordan enough cover to slowly move away and recover from the blow, as Tohar swerved to position himself atop the oversized lobster’s back, bringing armored paws down hard and ripping the machine’s back open before it twisted, reaching back to try and wrench him off. As Tohar propelled himself back and out of the way, the metal sections he had damaged shifted and folded over themselves, not quite repairing the damage but protecting the monster’s core from a direct attack. The Bewilderbeast discerned what this likely meant, and began piecing together a plan.

<Jordan! Are you recovered yet?> he called out.

<S-Somewhat,> the Oceanguard replied, reappearing from the cloud suspended below. <This abomination is strong enough to land blows through the fields.>

<I believe I may have found an answer however,> Tohar continued, watching with concern as the machine focused its attention now on a torpedo surging toward it from one of their subs. One swing of a claw and the explosive detonated, the energy dispersing over the metal and scarcely leaving a mark before the Leviathan focused on the torpedo’s origin. Before the sub could retreat, the energy tentacles fired, freezing the vehicle in place before it blew up, vaporizing and releasing a shockwave that threw the other submarines in the distance dangerously off-balance.

Tohar shook his head and glanced at Jordan again. <The hull readjusts itself to protect its core,> he said, swimming up to try and distract the Leviathan before it managed to kill anyone else. <Whatever the engine or power source is must be almost directly in its center. This is a recharging machine, but if we can get to the core and shut it down for even a moment we may be able to kill it permanently.>

<We’ll only have one shot at this then,> Jordan replied, coiling himself and watching the Leviathan as it turned toward them once more. <I need direct contact to cancel power and I can only do so for a short time before it reboots itself; I’ll need to be able to get in as soon as we can break the shell.>

Tohar nodded and fired, the super-coolant streaking through the water and crystallizing across the Leviathan’s head. Immediately he and Jordan aimed for the machine’s back again as it clawed away at the ice, breaking it off to see again before swiveling its claws to reach for the two reptiles.

Jordan wrapped himself around one of the appendages and latched his tail around a portion of the damaged back, pinning one claw as Tohar batted away the other before the Bewilderbeast drove his claws into the already torn metal again. The Leviathan reacted to the threat as frantically as expected, diving into deeper water and turning upside down, preparing to crush them both.

Tohar held on despite the impending danger, clawing frantically as he ripped through one, two, three shifting layers of metal and forcing the torn edges to stay apart, before leaping to the side as the Leviathan crashed into the seafloor. Jordan also wrenched himself to the side just in time, avoiding the impact, but now the claws both had free range and came racing after him again.

The water swirled violently as the Oceanguard drew the Leviathan back upward, just enough for Tohar to shove himself under and wrench open the closing metal again. One more layer of protection lay within, and he angled his head in and drove his tusks deep, piercing to the core and laying it open.

<Now Jord- AAAAHHH!!>

The Leviathan had felt the renewed attack behind it and shifted again, falling against the ocean floor. Tohar was wedged too far underneath to pull away safely, and Jordan saw him flail for a moment before falling still under the impact.

<Tohar!> he yelled, and as no response came back, his eyes narrowed.

The Leviathan twisted upward again, trying to catch the second troublesome reptile, but the Oceanguard swept over its head and out of immediate reach. The broken sections on its back were once again quickly shifting and covering up the great hole ripped into the machine, so Jordan lunged desperately forward, taking great risk and slipping his head through the opening.

Under the last covering, he spotted gears turning and shifting electrical wires covering a glowing, pulsing cylinder. The metal suddenly pressed down around him, so Jordan stretched out his neck and pressed his snout against the luminescent object, ignoring the urge to jerk away from the electrical shock that ran through him as he focused.

Moments later, movement ceased as his own power flooded over the Leviathan’s, cutting its energy source. The sharp metal edges on Jordan’s neck slackened, giving him opportunity to pull his head in further, jaws opening and clamping down hard on the power core before ripping it out. Jolts and sparks leapt out at him as he removed his head, mouthful and all, and watched as the massive machine slumped uselessly to the ocean floor. Then, he spat out the foul-tasting electrical equipment and rushed to Tohar, pressing his tail carefully to the Bewilderbeast’s neck, checking for a pulse.

<Tohar? Tohar, come on, answer me!> Jordan urged, eyes flickering frantically over the other dragon’s form. For a moment, nothing changed, and the Oceanguard feared the Leviathan’s impact had broken the Bewilderbeast’s neck.

Then, a soft pulse registered under Jordan’s tailfin, and he sighed with relief.

That relief did not last long, however, when he sensed movement in the water and spotted Malin’s subs deploying again, heading their way. Shifting his gaze, Jordan snarled, sending out a pulse of energy and breaking through to the radios of his allies.

“Leviathan down, engage enemy craft!” he ordered, ignoring the bubbly sound of his voice underwater and setting himself up in a threatening coil above Tohar’s unconscious form. “Weapons must not reach the Bewilderbeast! Engage now!”

* * *

As Hiccup, Toothless, Ember, Orha, and Amethyst skirted the eastern end of Central Park, they took in what was already clearly a torn-up battleground. To the south as far as Staten Island flickers of black appeared occasionally, signaling Bioraptors that made Amethyst itch to take a shot already. But their goal was at the far end of the park, where Heather had sent in the call for aid. When they reached it, signs already weren’t good.

Everyone was huddled together in separate groups, right in the middle of the various meadows with the accompanying reptiles encircling the human portion of each group. The five dove down toward where they spotted Stoick and Eret stationed in one group (somehow Heather, Freyja and Heimdall had all been split up amongst the other scattered battalions) and landed, dragons facing outward at the ready as Hiccup and Ember leapt off, bows at the ready.

“What’s the situation here Dad?” Hiccup asked, backing up toward his father.

“Camouflaged dinosaurs, as ridiculous as that sounds when I say it now despite everything,” Stoick replied. “Kingsley called them Indominus; apparently, you’ve seen them in a film before.”

“Dammit!” Hiccup quipped. “That’s why Heather called for the Night Furies then; let me guess, they’re the only ones who can see them since the Indominus are blocking heat signatures too.”

“Correct, and they’ve been using it well to their advantage.”

Hiccup scowled, and turned to Toothless and Amethyst, flipping the wings on his back open. “I’m taking to the air; Orha and Ember, you do the same. Toothless, Amethyst, you guys head toward the next group, echolocate and don’t stop. If you see the dinosaurs, take a shot and hopefully we’ll be able to take them out if that reveals them. Toothless, you stay to the back end of the group here, Amethyst up front.” He turned to the men. “How’d you guys manage to get separated so badly anyway?”

“They split us up,” Eret responded. “They learn tactics quickly, and Kingsley’s the only one who’s been able to even get close to one; took it down. We’ve lost eight soldiers already to them.”

Hiccup bore a grim face at that news and nodded, before signaling the dragons and taking flight, readying Framherja. The group below them began to shuffle across the green toward the next meadow, where Heather and Windshear were protecting the men alongside Twintail and Kingsley. The two Night Furies turned their attention outward and began to fire off echolocating pulses, the images bouncing back thus far showing nothing but grass and trees beyond their regular vision.

When they finally met up with Heather and Kingsley’s unofficial posse, Hiccup began wondering if perhaps the creatures they were guarding against had moved on, with some sort of ulterior motive set into them by Malin.

“Okay everyone,” he spoke up, garnering the whole gathering’s attention (though with what looked like a pair of artificial Night Fury wings flapping behind him he had the attention already), “we head through the trees to where Heimdall and Freyja are at, and then aim for the edge of the city. We need to make preparations; I’m sure you all heard Sarah’s warning about the incoming storm. We don’t want to be caught out in the open when that thing finally decides to roll…Toothless?”

“Hold up a moment,” the Night Fury quipped. His ears had perked up and his attention had swung to the bushes and trees to their eastern flank. Almost as quickly, Amethyst whirled to face the same direction, both Night Furies echolocating at a furious rate.

At first, Toothless thought he may have just been paranoid (though rightly so). Then, the sonic feedback reaching his ears painted a rapidly changing image in his mind, something big working its way through the trees and using the cover to its advantage. Moments later, a second figure appeared, about fifty feet to the left of the first.

“Two dinosaurs coming in!” Toothless snarled, wings hooding and spinal crests splitting as he continued to fire off sonic blasts. Everyone behind him immediately brought their guns up, and Hiccup trained his bow on the forest’s edge, waiting for the Indominus to realize they had been located.

A couple of trees cracked, but nothing further showed itself; at this point, Hiccup began to worry they’d missed something, especially if the dinosaurs were as smart as Eret claimed, and his grip tightened around Framherja.

A savage roar sounded and something big slammed into Toothless from the south, his field flaring before he rolled out of the way of the attacker and fired. The weak shot wasn’t meant to kill but reveal, the Indominus losing its concentration and becoming visible for a moment before it snapped its jaws viciously toward the soldiers nearest it. As they fell back, the two dinosaurs that had distracted attention showed themselves, one scattering the group and the other attacking Amethyst almost head-on to keep her busy.

They all missed Hiccup above their heads though. Crackling lightning charges rent the air with thunder, the first sending Amethyst’s assailant to the ground, and the second leaving a burn across the neck of the dinosaur chasing after the soldiers in the middle of the assembly. Both Toothless and Thornado ganged up on the third, backing it up toward the forest again before it spotted Kingsley weaving through the crowd toward it.

Word of the toxic serpent had apparently managed to pass between the dinosaurs in whatever manner they communicated, and the Indominus immediately turned and vanished from sight in the undergrowth.

With the distraction of Hiccup’s shots, the soldiers had managed to turn their weapons to bear on the two Indominus still present, and opened fire. Both reptiles roared in irritation, but much like was the case with Jake, Malin had added in a necessary protection: bulletproof scales. The attacks only riled up the dinosaurs further, and both went ballistic, dodging their main opponents and tearing into the crowd with jaws snapping violently.

Hiccup couldn’t risk a direct shot into the group, nor could the dragons, so the soldiers were forced to scatter, isolating themselves further so that effective attacks could be made. But the Indominus knew this as well, and stayed on top of the larger groups of men, inflicting injuries and fatalities whenever they lunged.

Then, Stoick and Heather leapt in with weapons bared; having spent at least half their lives once fighting dragons, and protected by their barriers and Myscale armor, they avoided the snapping jaws and flailing talons of the dinosaurs with ease. Stoick slid out his axe and swung, taking a large strip out of the calf of the one nearest him, before rolling under its tail as it turned to snap at him and embedding the blade into the dinosaur’s flank. It roared and stumbled, nearly falling into the second Indominus that Heather had injured with her sword.

“Windshear!” the warrioress yelled, the Razorwhip streaking in and twisting around the two dinosaurs, flexible body and tail tripping them up and sending both to the ground as further lacerations crossed the skin of their legs from the dragon’s sharp scales.

The soldiers moved away from the melee, and with the clear shot now presented Hiccup drew Framherja back and aimed point-blank as Toothless took to the air, both of them firing as one.

The combined shots intersected right on top of the two dinosaurs, searing both and breaking their necks outright with the concussive force of the blast.

Unified attention was a dangerous thing however; with everyone’s focus on the two now dead Indominus, the third that had retreated took an opportunity and reappeared behind them, jaws open to take another life. Still, there had been one pair guarding the whole spectacle, another truly invisible threat that saw the incoming attack.

A great roar sounded from the sky, and the Indominus turned to gaze upward, seeing Orha’s wide wings shimmer into focus directly above it, and the Shadowracer pounced down. A shot of fire knocked it senseless, before Orha’s jaws darted forward, clasping around the dinosaur’s neck and twisting with great force.

“We need to move, now,” Ember said, nodding to Hiccup as her dragon dropped the third corpse. “We’ll all stay on the ground when we move through the treeline here, and travel now while there’s a break. All dragons and Berk warriors on the edges, make a ring around the group.”

“Agreed,” Stoick affirmed, pointing forward. “Let’s move, now!”

The tree cover of the park here was fortunately mostly open, but Toothless and Amethyst confirmed as they entered that they were being flanked by more of the Indominus. The dinosaurs didn’t risk attacking again, having learned that the growing force was likely to deliver death, but Toothless could see them watching intently, and everyone picked up on the whistling, chittering calls that echoed across the landscape. When they broke through to the next meadow, Hiccup immediately ran to Jake and Embron, Kingsley to Heimdall and Freyja.

“They’ve stayed back for the most part from us,” Freyja said, looking around. “Jake’s posed a major threat to their attacks, and Embron has been keeping guard with his fire tricks.”

“Major benefit to being related to Hawken, I managed to gain his pyrokinesis,” the Nightmare confirmed nearby. “But we cannot stay here and talk; there’s a walk path at the far end of this meadow that leads to the distant edge of the park, and we should move on, especially if anything goes wrong with Hawken’s battle with Pitch. The last thing we need is both Indominus and Bioraptors coming after us together; we would all be at great risk then, not just the soldiers.” He swung his head to look over to Stoick, who nodded.

“Alright, Hiccup and Heather in the sky; Ember, Spitfire, and the Night Furies patrol around the group,” the chief ordered. “All other dragons and shielded fighters, bar the edges of the formation; let’s move out!”

The ground vibrated under their feet at that very moment, and everyone’s gaze was drawn to the skyline, where a plume of fire and a great explosion of black smoke erupted to the east. “Aand that’s our cue,” Twintail commented, flaring his wings and ushering the men near him toward the abandoned walk path. The others quickly followed their example, moving quickly with their weapons shouldered uneasily; they had seen how well guns would do against their threat, and had no time to prepare the more powerful weapons disassembled in their packs.

The attacks began again as soon as they entered the next heavily forested portion of the park, the lithe, quilled predators darting in between the defenders as others distracted the Night Furies that they had learned could see them even fully camouflaged. Yells of agony pierced the ears of those still living, making the company huddle together and move as quickly as they could under the assault, morale dropping as they inflicted almost no casualties on the dinosaurs while losing their own men one by one.

Orha, Spitfire, and Embron were the ones to finally stem the tide. The two former dragons, camouflaged themselves and Orha completely invisible even to the Indominus, circled the company and picked out the erratic but emerging pattern the dinosaurs were using and capitalized on it, intercepting the attackers and driving them off as Embron began sealing the remaining open spots between the defending dragons with great waves of fire, the kerosene gel on his skin leaping out aflame and circling menacingly. The Nightmare himself also stayed alight, swirls and tendrils of fire rippling hypnotically across his form as he prowled in his designated location. It did not take long for the Indominus to discover that they were not fully fireproof, and frustrated roars and chitters echoed through the trees.

Twenty agonizing minutes later, and the company finally reached the edge of the park, spilling out into the streets and heading in the direction of the bunkers that had been covertly implanted outside the edges of the city. The two Asgards present agreed to escort the soldiers away, but those on dragons knew that the terrors in the park had to be dealt with, lest they spread through the city alongside the Bioraptors they all knew were swarming to the southeast of the park. With how many of the dinosaurs were clearly on the loose, the danger was high, but the Berkian weapons and dragons were the only things that would take them down until more powerful, sturdy weapons could be brought in; until the storm passed, it was too risky trying to deploy those, or any large vehicles in the already ruined city.

“Hiccup, ye make sure Kingsley sticks with you and the Night Furies,” Stoick ordered. “Jake goes with Ember and Twintail, Eret and Spitfire with Embron and Heather. Stay clear of the east end; we don’t want te distract Hawken or give Pitch any ideas. Got it?”

“Got it,” everyone answered, and Stoick glanced to his own dragon, Thornado. “Alright, good. Thornado and I will scout from above, and work with Heather’s group if need be. If a situation gets out of hand, pull back and wait fer backup. With this war just beginning we cannot afford te lose anyone, and I will not lose any of you.”

They split up, fanning out across the park and scanning for danger below. Though they were focused on the task at hand, one group however did have another plan forming in their heads.

“My dad’s going to kill me if he figures it out,” Hiccup muttered, glancing down at Toothless before his gaze swung to Amethyst and Kingsley. “You guys think Hawken would mind a little backup in all honesty?”

<No, I don’t,> Amethyst responded, <but we need to make sure we don’t accidentally show up at the wrong point either; Pitch cannot gain any advantage.>

<If we split up and come in from all sides he won’t,> Kingsley said. <We can use our coms to triangulate position.>

Hiccup took in a deep breath, calming his mind, before setting his sights forward. “Okay, we’ll work through the park as were supposed to, and then we move in.”

* * *

WHAMMM!!

The blow sent me skidding across the grounds, barely dematerializing and slowing my travel in time to avoid the bronze statue I was sent tumbling toward. Immediately I whipped around and spewed anthracite flames in a spiraling arc toward the other black figure standing across from me in the clearing.

Pitch wasn’t slow enough to get hit by the flames, a river of his black sand erupting upward to block the fire, but we both knew I wasn’t just going to sit there and wait for the flames to dissipate before launching another attack. Seconds later Mysteel collided with dark matter blades, digging furrows into the soft ground with blades, feet, and claws.

“Your forces are limited and rapidly tiring out; how long do you think you can keep this up?” Pitch snarled.

I huffed, and whipped the sharp edges of my tail outward, impaling an incoming Bioraptor. “Berk fought dragons for 300 years, and dragons don’t tire as quickly as people do,” I bit back. “We also have the land-based advantage.”

“Not when we drive you out of the city,” Pitch laughed, twisting expertly out of the way of one of my swords before driving a spike toward my neck forcing me to bend backward to an awkward angle. “The coasts are reduced to rubble and Malin’s forces gain ground little by little. My nightmares swarm around us and drive your friends into Shen’s wolves, cornered or cut off from helping each other, and your dragon riders are pushed back by the drones and fire from the ships.”

A lucky shot carved a gash across my back, and I screeched in pain before backing away for a moment, healing the wound and curling my lip at Pitch. “Matters not as long as Aurianna’s barriers hold,” I growled. “We can always bounce back. Your Bioraptors make it through, but they pose no match to a real dragon either.”

Almost in proving my point, another pair of the abominations appeared in the sky above me and dove down, but with one swipe of my claws they were both brought to the earth, dissolving to nothing in a heartbeat. Pitch came in right behind however, and as I twisted to avoid the blade he swung my head came in close proximity to his so I turned and snapped down, grazing his ear and staggering him from the sound of my jaws slamming shut.

Pitch had apparently had enough of standing out in the open after that, and in the blink of an eye he was gone from sight, sunk into the shadows around our feet. I followed, meeting him in the place that only we knew and sending great ropes of dark matter toward him, snaking and spiraling in deadly patterns. The unnatural material Pitch wielded rose up to fill the void as well, slamming into my weapon and both straining to get past to envelope the other opponent.

Bioraptors suddenly filled the same space, screaming toward me and forcing me to direct part of my attention, rolling and slashing in a whirlwind to drive them back, nightmare after nightmare dissolving under my teeth, claws, and bladed tail but yet more always swarming in.

I snarled and let loose another blast of flames, the heat radiating outward even in this nonexistent dimension and filling the void around me, giving me an opening to fire another shot toward the straining battle of forces standing between me and Pitch. At the same time, he swept his hands up, the void around us seeming to coalesce into the vibrating mass of power.

Something gave, but even to this day I have no idea what it was, and both of us were slammed back by a wave of dark matter. We erupted back into the real world, skidding across the grass and dirt as between us a great column of fire and sand jetted up into the sky, dissipating as an unnerving cloud of sooty smoke.

For a couple of minutes, neither of us moved, both trying to assess what had just happened and blanking out on the fact that the other was still there, our attentions riveted on the wavering cloud.

The stalemate didn’t last forever though; soon enough, Pitch was on his feet again, spikes of hardened black sand hurtling down the meadow toward me. I twisted out of the way and rose up, wings flaring for balance as I let loose my black fire again, this time the flames coalescing around my rematerializing swords. With every swipe the fire expanded outward, an unpredictable danger that drove back Pitch and kept the swarming Bioraptors at bay while I tried to figure out a permanent solution to end this.

Pitch was skilled enough that he could keep fighting a war of attrition against me for a long time, and being an unnatural entity, he took longer to truly tire out than even I did if he wasn’t injured. My options were a balance: I could keep trying to go as I was and hope I got in a lucky shot that would slow him down and let me finish him off, or I could try calling in someone for backup and risk Pitch taking them either as a hostage against me or killing them outright, a result I could not stand for. As we had seen, the dark matter we both wielded could pierce straight through Aurianna’s barrier fields, so the latter was a high probability.

Eventually, it turned out that someone else made the decision for me. Still locked in a stalemate, holding Pitch back but unable to press any significant advantage, I caught sight of a different kind of movement coming in low over the trees. Keeping most of my attention on Pitch and thanking Yah that my current reptilian visage did not register emotions as well as a human face would, I watched as my sister approached, unnoticed and in a perfect position for an ambush.

Holly stayed low on Nara, sweeping in through the thinning trees and landing where Pitch could not easily see them. The Bioraptors quickly swarmed around the pair, intent to end the new threat, but a Nadder covered in spikes and a teenager with impeccable aim proved formidable opposition, the dragon’s fire burning away several of the creatures and her flying spines impaling a dozen others. The knives in Holly’s hands whirled fiercely, carving readily through everything that came within reach as they both inched nearer to the field, waiting for an opening.

I angled myself so that Pitch would keep his back to them, and snarled, fire leaking between my teeth and running down along the crests on my back. “I had once though Malin sent you to me because I was the only one who could match you, and possibly vice versa,” I quipped. “I also thought your death would be at my hands, because I was the only one who could manage to hit you no matter the form you took. But, starting to think that I was somewhat mistaken.”

Pitch snarled and swung his scythe again, the blade exploding in black as it met the fiery swords I held up. “Oh, come now, don’t tell me the almighty Dragon Man is admitting defeat already?” he queried almost disappointedly.

I shook my head and grinned. “No, it’s not that. I’m just starting to feel like someone else will get the lucky shot since I’m not getting anywhere, but I wouldn’t stop fighting until I choked out my last breath.”

“Good; I was worried I was going to be cheated of a proper victory,” he drawled, right before the ground underneath us seemed to shift, the anthracite sands of my opponent rising up under my feet. I lifted off to avoid another instance like that which I’d experienced at the university, and in that instant, several things happened in unison: Pitch swung his scythe upward, forcing my blades to come up to block him, and my rising out of the way of the sand put me directly into the path of another Bioraptor, this one sweeping through and sinking great claws and teeth into my back, knocking me to the open ground nearby as I roared in pain.

Most importantly, however, as I hit the ground I saw out of the corner of my eye my sister running forward under Nara’s cover fire for her and using the sound of my own battle to cover her steps as she removed a black, sleek knife from her belt.

Pitch swept forward as I turned up and bit into the Bioraptor’s neck, ending it, and smacked me across the head with the flat of his blade. The pain made my vision explode in brilliant stars for a moment, and I slumped to the ground as Pitch raised the weapon again.

“You’re right, you don’t stop fighting, which is good,” he noted, a murderous smile marring his already twisted expression. “But tell me: now that you’ll be out of the picture, who could possibly have the capacity to end me when no one can touch me?”

The scythe swept down mercilessly.

“ME!!”

The shout made Pitch falter from surprise in his swing, the blade digging a great furrow into the dirt next to my neck, and he turned to face this new possible threat. But Holly’s knife was already in flight, and as the nightmare king swung to regard her, arms down in his failed attack, it struck deep into the center of his chest, Mysteel easily penetrating his armored cloak.

Pitch gasped, freezing in place as both the wound and the venom on the blade went to work. This time, fading into the shadows would not save him either, only worsen the fate. He looked up as Holly stepped forward, another knife of the same design already twirling in her grip.

“That was for my school, and what you did to my brother,” she snapped, “both times.” Glancing at me, I saw her eyes flash with a fire entirely her own. “And this, this is for the rest of the world!”

The knife whipped from her hands and sailed forward straight and true, piercing Pitch’s forehead and driving in to the handle.

That was that. Two mortal wounds and a double dose of Piffleworm venom acted rapidly, and Pitch Black slumped, lifeless, to the ground.

I let out a great sigh of relief and stood up, healing the wounds on me as I demorphed for the first time in hours, running forward to grab my sister in a hug even as an eerie cry rose up around us.

“Holly, please don’t try anything like that _ever_ again, you hear me?” I quipped, trying and failing to keep an exasperated expression pointed to her as Nara came up behind her. “Without my knowledge, at least!”

“Well, it looked like you needed my help, so shush!” Holly volleyed back, grinning. “He’s dead now, and that’s what matters.”

A flash of black out of the corner of my eye drew me to extend my bladed tail again, impaling the winged creature as it tried to snap at us, and my smile turned into a deep scowl as I realized what it was. “Great, they didn’t all leave when he died,” I muttered, hoisting the flailing Bioraptor up before slamming it to the ground, a sickening crack echoing as the thing fell lifeless. I extracted my tail and burned the blood off, before observing the abomination more closely.

“Well, at least now that they’re flesh and blood they can’t use dark matter as an attack route I hope, but looks like they’re not going to be as easy to kill either.”

“They won’t be able to get through the fields now though, right?” Holly asked. I nodded, and she, being Holly, just gave a reassured smile in response. “Good. Not much to worry about then; they’re no worse than the wargs.”

“The park’s got its own worse problems to deal with though!”

Holly, Nara, and I all turned up to see Hiccup and the two Night Furies glide in to land. “No fair taking all the fun, Holly,” Amethyst continued, to which her semi-relative only grinned mischievously, “but anyway, Central Park’s been overrun with a half-sized version of the Indominus Rex from that new Jurassic movie. Malin’s made them into actual living weapons, how ironic.”

“And I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we need to help get everyone either out of the city altogether or hunkered down somewhere at least relatively safe, because there’s a huge storm about to sweep in,” Hiccup added.

I frowned, and turned on my dematerialized com. “Sarah, you there?”

“Hawken! Thank God you’re still alive; is Pitch dealt with then?”

“Yeah, he’s gone, praise be. How long before this storm comes in?”

“Just a matter of hours, but the winds might start picking up dangerously soon; something about gust fronts or other. Radar people say it’ll last all night and maybe into the morning too.”

That was actually great news to me. “Well, looks like the Lord’s giving us an opportunity to rest and regroup then. I’m assuming everyone else has already received the warning; what of the fight Tohar and Jordan were in?”

“Leviathan’s been turned to sushi, but Jordan is being held down, busy guarding an injured Bewilderbeast at the moment.”

Not good. I turned to my companions. “Okay, I’m heading out to help Tohar; you guys clear out of the park and get everyone to back out of the city. Holly, make sure Mom and Dad are okay, and that they get out, and Amethyst, you help Hiccup and Toothless get everyone out of the park. We’ll deal with the Bioraptors and Indominus afterward.”

“What about Shen and his wargs?” Holly queried. “We have three major animal forces we’ve been facing and those guys have filled like half the city.”

“Same thing. Fight off where you need to, but focus on clearing the city. We’ll deal with them after the storm passes, or during the storm, those who can.”

I glanced toward the sky, where clouds were sweeping in already, a far darker form than the gray matte layer that had hung over us all day, and the distant horizon was turning a truly black hue. “It’s only been one day in this war; we’ve got a long ways to go.”


	31. What the Winds Wrought

_Savage gales rend the sky_

_A tempest rages ‘round the eye_

_Currents howl and fiercely bite_

_And break the silence of the night_

_The path they wreak is fraught with tears_

_And littered with our broken fears_

_The bravest captains won’t dare to sail_

_Yet the crazed will tempt the wild wail_

The storm hit hard, sweeping over the coast with all the fury of the gales that pounded Berk in the dead of winter; winds rushed by at sixty miles an hour, driving rain and ice through all but the hardiest of souls. Even they, however, were avoiding being caught in the downpour.

Malin’s forces had taken to the same idea as our side had, returning to their anchored ships and riding out the weather that would only have benefited Jordan, Tohar, and I in battle; maniacal as he was, Malin knew those grounds were not ones any of his forces would win on, not when the Oceanguard and Bewilderbeast were too big for the storm to bother, and I could harness the fury that electrified the air. But, though we had returned to the academy grounds for recuperation, it was not a restful time.

Many of us traveled through the portal back to Berk, where the night was calm, if cold, and prepared a special pyre. Fandral had been a powerful ally, a trusted friend, nearly a match in swordsmanship for Astrid and Camicazi, and his loss was breaking the Asgard family in short order.

As the boat drifted out of the bay, and flames rose high from the arrows that flew out to meet it, Odin and his family gathered together and mourned while Hiccup, the other teens, and many of the Berk villagers gathered for a second funeral. Malin and his forces had managed a lucky shot with one of the quinjets, bringing down Lars Thorston and his Dervish, Onyx.

I could not for the life of me recall any time I had ever seen Ruffnut and Tuffnut cry until that night, but the even more shocking thing was what the tragedy did to their personalities, and it was almost as frightening as the war we were fighting.

“If I see this fight through to the end, I’d going to give Malin my personal regards,” Tuffnut growled soberly, his eyes darkened like they never had been before and tears falling from them still as he watched the two pyres carrying family by blood and their dragon away. “You going to be there with me sis?”

“I wouldn’t give anything less for Lars,” Ruff agreed, gripping her spear tightly enough to make her hand pale.

“Hey, we don’t want to lose anyone else before this ends,” Hiccup said, walking up and placing a hand on both of their shoulders, “and that’s the kind of mindset that will make it happen. We all want to give Malin what’s coming to him for all of this, but if you just charge in on a revenge streak we’ll have at least three more funerals to attend, and I for one don’t want that. I know we’ve never been exactly the closest to each other, but you two are still friends to me, and I won’t lose my friends if I can help it.”

He looked over to where Odin, Loki, and the other Asgards stood; Thor was not there, having volunteered despite everything to stay on guard duty back at the academy, but the rest of them stood downtrodden and dark-faced, looking to the horizon. Amethyst was with them, helping to console Loki by tapping into the old kinship the man once had with her kind.

I stood near Bertha, Mogadon, and Stoick, watching most of this from afar. Despite the number of funerals I had attended already by then it never got any easier when it was someone I had known personally, and I was trying to stay as detached as I could at the moment so that I could keep my focus on what was still to come. It had still hit hard, though, when I heard who we had lost thus far, and I was personally very glad Holly had headed straight home with Nara, and was busy restocking what she’d lost in the fight throughout the day rather than watching the somber occasion. I still didn’t like that she was in the war at all, so I certainly wasn’t going to encourage anything that would make the experience worse than it already was.

“So what’s the plan fer when the storm lets up over there?” Gobber queried, hobbling up with George in tow (the semi-nomadic Boneknapper had shown up not an hour after we’d returned to Berk, fully decked out as always now in his Mysteel coated bone armor).

Stoick sighed and glanced at the quirky smith, and then to Bertha and I. “We haven’t even begun te discuss it really,” he said, “but most of us will be in similar positions come tomorrow morning. Jordan and Tohar will take to the sea, the riders fortifying the coast and the edges of our ground forces, and I’m sure you’ll be busy, Hawken, with whatever that scum cooks up next. I think we should shuffle who is paired with whom this time though, so that our forces aren’t so specialized in focus.”

“Agreed,” Bertha noted, glancing at Hiccup who was still a distance away with the twins. “We should have at least one Night Fury or similar dragon in every section of the city we can, especially in the park where ye reported those creatures. Sif and her group should station in the city, Loki stay with Thor and Aurianna on the front lines since he has the variety of abilities he can put te use. From where Lauris and I were throughout today, Malin is relying fully on attrition and a splitting of our forces, so we need te even out and allocate our strengths to the right places.”

They all glanced at me, and I sighed partly out of amusement and partly out of exhaustion. “The balance is really off kilter when the Viking chiefs are looking at a guy not even from the same world for affirmation,” I joked darkly, before my face turned fully serious. “Everyone keep at least one gun and one Mysteel weapon on them at all times, full ammunition for the former when you head out. If you get a shot, take it unless there’s a greater threat to avoid, no hesitations. Malin’s lost two of his greatest advantages now that the Leviathan and Pitch are gone, so he will go all out in response, anything he can do to keep me or anyone else who can from finding his location. We’ve struck a blow, but so has he, and he’s not a guy to give up until he loses his last hand.”

* * *

Eight o’ clock the next morning, the storm was still pounding the city with heavy rains and sleet, but news had gotten worse overnight: in the midst of our recuperation and mourning our losses, Malin’s fleet had expanded. Nearly two hundred individual vessels were gathered again along the coast of New York, which meant the fight of attrition would continue, but we were no longer the only target.

Smaller fleets had appeared further south, too far for us to intervene and coming fully under the duty of other military forces. The first report was agonizing: a coastal town in North Carolina had been hit at barely five in the morning, before any preparations had even had a chance to be made for defense. Several thousand civilians were either missing or confirmed dead, and battles all along the coast had erupted where armed forces were mobilizing. War was truly begun in earnest, and we were not only seeing the full horrors unfold, but realizing just how small even our Viking and dragon band of several hundred was in the grand scope.

I didn’t wait for the storm to let up like everyone else did before I moved in; learning about just how far our enemy was reaching was more than enough motivation for me to start early. Lightning still split the sky as I took to the air, purple Skrill wings spreading wide and rapidly attracting the static charges in the atmosphere. New York City swept swiftly by below me, and my gaze settled on the ships riding out the waves of the Atlantic and all its fury. They were too big to be swamped by the swells, but that only made them better targets for an attack from a natural weapon.

Fully charged, I dove straight down to the surface of the bay, the water erupting upward behind me as I rocketed forward. The side of a battle cruiser loomed ahead of me, shimmering ever so slightly with the energy barrier around it, but I only grinned; that would work to my advantage this time. Flaring my wings to slow down, I gathered a charge and fired.

The result was spectacular, the field rippling and then exploding, sending water erupting all around the ship and streamers and sparks scattering across the deck. Seconds later I fired again, burning a hole through the metal and electrocuting anyone standing on the surface before sweeping past. Behind me, I heard a muffled explosion from somewhere within, and I didn’t need to look back to know the fate of the ship.

The rest didn’t wait for me to fire the next shot, the air filling immediately with projectiles of ever manner; I only grinned at the sight though, imagining Malin’s flustered screaming at his own men since he knew very well what my next move was.

I morphed again, triple-split wings flaring out, and electric streamers splayed out in all directions from their tips. Lightning from above funneled down to me, and fireballs and particle beams coalesced in great geometric patterns in the air around me. Missiles and other explosive detonated early, loading the sky with fire, and then to finish the display I turned and reversed the attack, covering the vessels in their own fire and raking them with great claws of lightning.

“I can do this all day, Malin,” I growled loudly, broadcasting the message wide over the ships. “If this is all that you have left then”-

Apparently, Malin was waiting too for the right moment to unleash his next weapon. The ocean below me erupted, cutting off my words as something almost reptilian looking but slick and glowing reached up after me. Instinctively I fired; lightning scarred the clawed limb, but it barely seemed to react to the injury as it caught hold of my tail firmly and pulled me down.

My next instinct is what kept me from being pulled under. I dissolved into the pure electric form the Lightning Blazer was known for, no longer a physical entity to be grasped. As the limb returned to the sea I caught the outline of just what it was below the surface that had attacked: huge, at least the size of Tohar himself, and greenish with blue highlights running in fluorescent patterns across its skin. The head was twisted by the ocean’s refraction, but I could see piercing blue eyes, and long, shark-like jaws filled with teeth to match.

“Kaiju,” I growled, before sighing and switching on my com. “Alright, Jordan, Tohar? We’re up; Malin’s got some new aquatic abominations to destroy.”

A massive splash drew my attention out to sea, and I spotted another ugly shape much further off the coast.

“Aaand he’s got more than one.”

* * *

Astrid was itching to get even with Shen once the storm let up. The atmosphere was gray, tense, and gloomy, just as it had been the whole war thus far, but her mood was unaffected by the aesthetic. Zipeau was with her again, the dinosaur being the best bet against the versatile war bird, and this time behind them was half the force of the raptors, Sif, and Thuggory.

Entering the city was silent and swift enough, but finding their quarry quickly proved to be difficult. Never mind that the city was huge; the fighting of the day before had weakened many buildings, and the subsequent storm had brought them to their roots, so the territory was much more harsh rubble than it was city now. While the dinosaurs and dragons had no issue with this, it slowed down anyone who wasn’t able to fly or had access to natural agility. All the military troops, therefore, quickly fell behind the warrior crew.

“He knows our hands-on fighting style,” Astrid mused quietly, “and like some of us he’s fast enough with his weapons to deflect bullets. We’ll need the dragons and the raptors to hold off the wolves while we face him, and under no circumstances can we let him slip away again or he will do so and call in all the reinforcement firepower he can. Malin’s built up a lot of backup, so he could bring in just about anything.”

She turned her focus forward upon hearing a new noise, but relaxed when she saw nothing more than falling rubble. With Shen, flesh-and-blood Bioraptors on the loose, and the weapons the other side wielded, they could not afford to truly let their guard down.

“So this is an attempt to finish fast and clean,” Sif responded, her sword already out and at the ready.

Astrid nodded. “Yep. You and I are fast; Zipeau has the best chance of taking the peacock out though with his inventions. Shen’s creative, so he’ll use anything we have against us too if we let him.”

“Heads up guys!” Thuggory announced, bringing out his broadsword. “Shen’s not the first thing we’re going to have to worry about!”

A screech seconds later turned everyone’s eyes up to the broken buildings around them as black, winged monstrosities began to swarm through the shattered windows. When Pitch died, it turned out that the full number of his forces had come to life, filling the city wherever they’d been.

“Yeah, it couldn’t have been just a hundred or two, could it?” Astrid growled as she leapt up, blades swinging out in tandem (axe in one hand, sword in the other). “No, it had to be thousands!” The first Bioraptor swept around her, bringing the blades of its tail to bear, before encountering Mysteel full force. Screaming in pain and landing with a bloody pair of stumps trailing it, the abomination hooded its wings, bearing oversized teeth at Astrid, who landed as well and turned to face a second; she didn’t have to worry about the one already injured as Sif leapt forward and buried her blade deep into its back.

“Circle up! Zipeau called, his baton twirling and flashing energy as he loaded the barrels on his other arm up. “No opening on any side, we can move faster if they can’t get in between us!”

He bounded up next to Astrid, a beam searing out through the wings of one of the Bioraptors as Thorn blasted another attacker coming in from above. The others followed suit, giving no edge for the wave to utilize as they inched forward into the city.

The sky darkened again with wings and teeth, but the creatures were now no longer able to bypass the barriers of their targets, putting them at a greater disadvantage, disorganized as they were without a director.

Then, Astrid’s ears picked up the sound of something they were actually looking for: the faint, distant call of a peacock, and an answering chorus of chilling howls.

“I hear them!” she yelled. “They’re close!”

“The Bioraptors are covering for them!” Natasha suddenly replied, whipping her talons out and raking them across another creature’s face. The red-marked Metaraptor turned her head toward Astrid for a moment before focusing back on the attackers. “They’re not haphazardly disorganized, we’re being drawn in without our bearings!”

A sudden high-pitched whistle from above drew their attention to a rapidly incoming missile. “Scatter!” Astrid yelled, seeing their attackers doing the same. The group scurried out of the way, diving behind rubble and through broken windows mere moments before the warhead hit, detonating in the open stretch of road and sending shrapnel in every direction under fiery force. Astrid breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the shards bounce harmlessly off her field, before she dared to peek her head over the edge of the concrete slab she’d hidden behind, noting the crater where they had been standing and seeing other heads popping out around the perimeter; everyone had escaped the attack.

Her relief died a screaming, agonizing death when a shiny metal blade, etched in an intricate feathery pattern, embedded itself in the concrete next to her shoulder, just outside her field’s range. Astrid whipped around, sword and axe up, to meet her opponent head-on as Shen’s blade clashed with hers (and once again, frustratingly not caving in under the edge of Astrid’s Mysteel axe).

The bird whipped his glaive around in a furious circle, slamming into Astrid and sending her rolling over the edge of the slab she’d been behind, and then he leapt just as quickly to the top and brought his weapon down to follow her.

Another double-bladed sword was there to catch the glaive, twirling it away effortlessly and giving Astrid the bare moment she needed to roll all the way to her feet.

“So this is the peacock who gave my friends so much grief yesterday,” Sif quipped, eyeing Shen disapprovingly as she balanced expertly on the rubble at her feet. “As an honest warrior I’ll say you’re more of an intimidating presence than I expected for a bird, and I’ve fought other sentient avians before.”

“It’s a reputation I worked hard to earn once,” Shen snarled back, tail feathers flaring and slashing razor edges toward them. “It’s not one I’ll let go of easily either.” Another spinning of the blades and he forced the two warrioresses back, before slipping something else out of his robe.

“Look out!” Sif yelled, pulling Astrid down as the weapon fired.

A bright flash of fizzing red and violet exploded in a fan around the muzzle of the modified gun, and a projectile raced out of the barrel, carrying with it the same streamer of sparks behind it. It soared across the ruined street and struck Silas, the barrier the raptor wore protecting him from immediate injury, but the resulting detonation of the explosive threw him through a broken window to crash loudly somewhere inside. The raptor stood up shakily, before immediately being bowled over by a warg, forcing Silas to remain on the ground as he slashed furiously at his assailant, trying to find a weak spot.

Astrid rolled to her feet again and swung her sword, but Shen had already put the weapon away and parried her blow with ease, at the same time nearly clipping Sif’s hair, the weapon slowed only by her field.

“I’m not the only one with that device either,” the bird chuckled, spinning on his claws and sweeping just under Astrid’s guard, forcing her to leap back as the point of the glaive came in toward her neck. “And I doubt your soldiers will do so well against them as your team does.”

A volley of shots echoed somewhere around them in the streets, followed by screams of pain that Astrid and Sif both instinctively knew came from the military on their side. The foot soldiers had finally arrived from both factions, surrounding the battle of the empowered, and the result was already going downhill.

Enraged, Astrid let out a war cry of fury and leapt toward Shen again, her blades flashing faster than the eye could follow.

* * *

“We keep going at this rate and it’s still going to take another three hours to clear the park,” Heather griped, twirling her blades as the Razorwhip next to her dragged the Indominus to the ground, snapping its neck.

“Oh, just be glad Ember and Orha are taking care of the other end,” Toothless quipped back, shadowing his brother as they scanned the trees. “These guys are smart, but they can’t hide from all of us. Duck!”

Heather dropped to the ground as the Night Fury let loose a fireball, the indigo blast exploding across the face of another dinosaur and sending it stumbling, visible, into a third. Hiccup reacted next, firing at the second Indominus and managing a chain reaction, stunning the pair and allowing Heather and Windshear to gang up on the third, bringing it down. The second Indominus stumbled out of its daze just barely in time to avoid another bolt from Framherja, vanishing into the trees before Toothless could line up his shot.

“If I never have to use a sword again I would be more than happy about it,” Heather grunted, removing her blade from the side of the expiring dinosaur pinned under Windshear’s weight and wiping it on the grass with a disgusted look. “There’s a reason we were always called the Peaceable Tribe.”

“Believe me, I know exactly how you feel,” Hiccup agreed, lowering Framherja. “But this needs to be done; the Indominus shouldn’t exist and if there are any left after this war the city will never be safe until it’s dealt with.”

“No time to talk, guys,” Toothless interrupted, looking across the meadow. “Two more heading west, toward Ember, and they know we’re here.”

Heather moved to climb on Windshear’s saddle as Hiccup leapt to Toothless’ back, the two dragons taking off and skimming low over the grass. <3…2…1…> Toothless counted, before firing.

The shot missed as the Indominus pair split apart, but the change in lighting outlined them enough for Hiccup to draw his bow and let off a shot, tagging the haunches of one and making it stagger. The other rendered itself visible, its cover blown, and slid under Windshear’s claws, whipping its own jaws around in turn and biting down, hard, on the Razorwhip’s tail. The pressure made Windshear cry out in pain, but the dragon’s natural armor didn’t give, allowing her to twist her tail and drive the sharp edges along it into the dinosaur’s gums.

The pain made the Indominus loosen its grip instantaneously, and realizing that it had lost that advantage it quickly backpedaled to avoid Heather’s sword heading for its snout.

The other Indominus did not fare as well. Hiccup’s shot was a critical wound, and one blast from Toothless finished the job. They touched down for a moment and turned to help Heather and Windshear, only to be ambushed from behind by a third, hiding at the edge of the trees and previously missed by Toothless’ echolocation thanks to the thick trees.

The dinosaur bowled them over, the two of them contacting the ground hard despite their barriers, and Hiccup instinctively unclipped himself to avoid being smashed by Toothless rolling over him. The dinosaur had been waiting for an opportunity like that however, and it turned and snapped, separating dragon from rider as Hiccup jumped away from the jaws of death. The Indominus managed to grab his foot as he did so though, tossing him up as its own foot slammed down on Toothless, dazing the Night Fury.

Hiccup’s hand went to one of his swords and he swept it out, bringing the blade to bear roughly in the direction of the ground as he tumbled end over end. The Indominus’ jaws opened, and the sword caught first, cutting through a tooth and then slicing deep into the lower jaw, twisting Hiccup just out of the way of immediate danger and letting him hit earth as the dinosaur roared in pain from the sudden searing gash that had dug through bone. Hiccup bounced harmlessly with his field to his feet, and sheathed the sword so that he could pull Framherja back to bear again. As the dinosaur turned his way once more, forgetting about Toothless momentarily in the agony it experienced, Hiccup loosed a bolt straight into its snout, focusing intensely on that crackling spear.

Instead of exploding immediately, the bolt embedded itself in the reptile’s nose, sending another round of pain through it.

“Oh good, it does work!” Hiccup exclaimed excitedly, before turning serious again. “Now, just to finish the job.” He twitched his hand, and the bolt discharged like electricity should, tendrils of lightning racing across the dinosaur’s scales and down its neck. A spasm ran through it, and the beast fell with a great thud to the earth.

Once he was sure it was dead, Hiccup ran to Toothless, eyes wide in worry as the dragon still hadn’t gotten up.

“Toothless, you okay?!” he yelled. “Can you hear me?”

The Night Fury groaned and slowly rolled to his stomach. <Ow…yeah, I’m fine, mostly,> he grumbled. <Those things weigh a lot.> He turned to take in Heather and Windshear still circling the remaining opponent, and gestured toward it. <Take a shot, it’s focused elsewhere and my head’s still ringing.>

Hiccup nodded and stood up, aiming a bead down the back of the dinosaur’s neck. As soon as it turned its gaze down to Heather, he fired, thunder rolling and followed by the nearly as loud crash of the Indominus as it hit ground.

“I’m not the only one who’s getting worn out quicker today, am I?” Heather grunted, looking ground cautiously as she sheathed her blade. “Hey, you still have those water bottles on your saddle?”

“Yeah, here,” Hiccup replied, walking over to Toothless and pulling out a metal bottle from a pocket on the side of the saddle, tossing it to Heather before he grabbed a second. “Ugh, if we don’t get Malin to back off soon, we’re going to be worn past our limits from compound fatigue. This needs to be done quickly or we need a couple days of breather.”

Heather opened her bottle and took a long drink, before gasping and nodding as she pulled it away. “Yeah. Let’s keep heading in Ember’s direction; pray she’s had some decent luck. As least she carries the Piffleworm arrows with her.”

“And she and her dragon can disappear from sight like our targets can,” Toothless agreed. “Best to keep near her I think once we meet up; these things are getting smarter too.”

* * *

Fishlegs held at Snotlout’s back as the wave came in, soldiers bearing the particle weapons Snotlout had described the day before and shadowed by the Bioraptors. Fireworm, Meatlug, and Barfbelch were whirling through the skies above them, trying to keep the flying abominations at bay as the Vikings on the ground used the cover to their advantage.

Ruff and Tuff were proving incredibly hard to hit, the first mild burns they’d received simply riling the pair up and spurring them to rampage through the shattered buildings, but the two slower and larger Vikings they were with made for more tempting targets, forcing them both to shelter behind broken wiring and concrete.

“I thought they were supposed to meet up here by now!” Snotlout yelled, tossing a slab over his hiding spot and getting in a lucky hit against one soldier, flattening him as Fishlegs fumbled with a device Zipeau given him, a hard screen bearing a complex web of who was where.

“I know, I know, looking that up now!” the heavier-set rider groused, before pressing his com. “Feren, Camicazi, where the heck are you guys?!”

“Sorry, got held up!” the shout came in, both through Fishlegs’ headset and above as a familiar serpentine Mood Dragon banked around a nearby building and fired, providing an opening for a certain blonde covered in blades to drop in, swinging haphazardly in all directions. Moments later a rainbow-colored furball leapt out of the nearby alley, morphing slightly so as to be able to scoop up a fallen rifle and firing into the spidery-looking rivals as he turned to address Fishlegs.

“Two fronts moved in around Staten; Sasha and Holly are on the other end of the island with Gobber and Valka backing them. There was a surprise holdout further inland holding up Fenrir and Heimdall, so we’re the main force covering the US army coming in. Heard anything from Rickheimer or Sarah?”

“Not a peep,” Fishlegs replied. “Most of the cameras have been damaged and they’re relying almost entirely on feedback from us and the jets coming in now, so pray the other riders can cover the aerial forces well enough!”

A beam lanced through the wiring by his head, sending sparks flying in all directions. Fishlegs growled as one singed his face and grabbed a small chunk of concrete, hurling it in the direction of the attack. It did little damage, bouncing off one of the metal arms of the portable weapons, but it was enough to knock the man off balance, making sure he couldn’t right himself in time to escape Snotlout’s much bigger gift. With an open space they moved forward, and Fishlegs pulled out his 1911-A1, flicking the safety off.

“Alright, cover for Ruff and Tuff coming up! You two get ready!”

Gunfire ripped through the street, ricocheting off some infantry’s armor but finding their target on other soldiers, laying open the scene for Ruff, Tuff, and Cami to barrel down the street, sharp objects flying in their wake.

Snotlout leapt over his hiding spot then, hammer swinging, before almost immediately having to leap out of the way as Meatlug and Fireworm came crashing to the ground, groaning. On their hides were several wounds, barely beginning to scab over.

“Fireworm!” Snotlout yelled, running up to his Nightmare with Fishlegs right behind him heading for his Gronckle. They glanced over the city, before looking skyward toward the thickening cover of Bioraptors. Stormfly and Barfbelch were still aloft, but slowly being driven downward as the persistent (and not as easily killed) Bioraptors pressed on. Snotlout cursed and gripped his hammer tighter, as Fishlegs pulled out his sword.

“We’re going to need aerial backup here!” Fishlegs yelled into his com. “Feren, get ready to take cover in the buildings!”

* * *

Lightning and fire filled the sky, from both sides. Aurianna twisted her giant shell of recycled wreckage to bat away another of the drones that had somehow repopulated the area, before leaning quickly to the side to avoid the rocket screaming in from a ship further out in the bay, blasting it with a drone weapon to detonate it before it could reach the city.

“Loki, we need a cover to reach the vessels releasing the drones!” she yelled, frantically pressing on the minerals lining her forearms and bringing vortices of rock and water up from below. “Thor! Quinjets approaching from the south again, too far for shots from the Air Guard. Light them up!”

“No, I thought I’d just let them pass by for another joyride!” her brother snarked, soaring past and upward. Despite the storm having already begun moving on, as he raised Mjolnir the air swirled and lightning raced down to him, before exploding out from the hammer and striking the futuristic aircraft pair that had been heading in their direction. The jets stalled under the initial strike but did not fall, and Thor swung Mjolnir again to release the second volley, this time drilling into the fuel lines. Twin explosions decorated the skyline, bringing a grim smile to the man’s face.

Lightning flashed elsewhere, drawing Thor’s attention further out. He spotted a dark blue figure racing over the ocean surface, which itself was boiling with some of the ugliest creatures Thor had ever seen, alongside which were fighting Jordan and Tohar. Hawken was clearly fully busied, being the main target of the creatures he had called Kaiju as well as that of the ships that stretched almost from one end of the metropolis coast to the other. Thor frowned, and sent a bolt in the direction of the shapeshifter to help out before turning and flattening a drone coming his way with Mjolnir.

Seconds later he was swerving out of the way as the sky filled with multiple copies of his brother.

“Aaahh! Ugh, a warning would have been nice for once, Loki!”  
“Shut up and focus on the task at hand!” the nearest animated hologram quipped, passing along the actual Loki’s sentiments. “Clear the drones and cover for Aurianna while she locates the remaining source ships!” A sword appeared in his hand, and the air rippled as the telekinetic abilities of the guardian manifested further, propelling the hologram forward and the sword into another drone, throwing the beam it had fired wide and cutting through a second.

Thor groaned and followed behind, electricity building again for another swipe. “Figures,” he muttered, “the one time he can actually stay serious is when we’re all under risk of death.”

Aurianna waited nearby as Loki’s physical holograms opened up the sky, Thor clearing stragglers behind them, and once the path was open enough she leaned forward, her motley suit mimicking her action and racing on the gravitational field it used toward the line of ships. The nearest one swung its guns in her direction, and she slowed as it fired, sweeping her hands up and bringing the swarm of boulders following her to bear. The projectiles hit and exploded, leaving the vessel momentarily defenseless as it reloaded. Not waiting for that, Aurianna sent one of the rocks at her command in its direction, and watched as the barrier around the ship rippled under the force, compounded in effect by the boulder shattering and exploding seconds later. As soon as the dust cleared she was there, fist rearing back and slamming forward. Energy crackled around the suit’s hand and reacting violently with the force field to bring it down just long enough for both the alchemist and one of Loki’s “minions” to land on the deck.

“I’ll get the soldiers, you take out the guns and the engine system,” the Loki copy said, hand waving and the bullets whistling their way halting midair, before sailing back down the paths they came.

Aurianna turned and swept her hand around, gems lighting up again and magnetic fields erupting along the ship, ripping apart the railings and bringing beams and shards flying toward the turrets lining the far end of the vessel. Screaming metal signaled their loss of usefulness, and then several more shards slammed down into the deck, ripping open a hole that Aurianna floated down through, shedding her “suit” to fit through better and leaving it behind as a cover.

Two decks down, she found herself in the middle of the engine room, everything running full speed even as wiring sparked and fizzed above from Aurianna’s unorthodox entrance.

“Alright, ship’s lifespan is over,” she muttered, taking a small, blackish mineral out of one of her pockets and planting it next to a large turbine. Then she whirled and shot back up through the holes above her, the repurposed metal cover reforming around her as she re-emerged.

“Time to go!” she yelled, Loki’s hologram sending a materialized metal spike through one more infantryman on the deck before following her away. Once far enough, Aurianna pressed a band on her side, and turned to watch the ship.

The deck heaved, and fire erupted out of the holes she’d torn before the deck collapsed inward, flames consuming everything flammable in moments and leaving a charred, sinking wreck.

Something slammed hard into Aurianna’s back, sending her and the suit tumbling. She quickly righted herself above the water, and spun to view the attacker. A massive humanoid object, like a mockery of her own contraption, hovered over the bay, held aloft by flaring boosters. As Aurianna came back up to its level, its arm twisted, reforming and aiming a massive barrel in her direction.

“Oh, it never ends, does it?” she groused, bringing up her own arms, the stolen drone weapons coalescing in her suit’s palms. “Very well then, show me what you’ve got to fight with!”

* * *

“One drone vessel taken out, the sea dragons and the shapeshifter are gaining ground over the monsters, sir,” the statistics manager reported, waiting to see Malin’s reaction.

The latter frowned, but didn’t move. “What of Shen, or the Indominus pack?”

“Still in the heat of battle, but Hiccup and the girl with the disappearing dragon are making rapid headway through the latter. The traitor Jake is also in the park helping on that front, and our forces in Queens are being routed by that cobra of theirs and the Asgards. We have managed to stall several other ground forces though, but without any easy means to penetrate their force fields the Berkians and their allies are only vulnerable to lucky hits. Main casualties are all through the other US and allied forces.”

He knew this was likely to be the result. Turning toward the display on the monitors in the room, he pressed down on several buttons on the control panel and waited. The displays shifted, showing not just the nearby battlefield but a full world map.

“Send out the orders, put Phase Two in motion. Initiate attacks on allied countries to halt their forces coming to the United States’ aid, and call in the other half of the main fleet. We press our advantage in numbers now; tire them out and those ‘lucky hits’ will come in easier. We keep Hawken busy, as there is little that can truly overpower him now, but exhaustion and missed opportunities can still take him down. Or, his heart will.”

“Yes sir,” the statistician replied, turning immediately and heading toward the communications room. Malin kept his gaze on the map; having lost Pitch, he had lost one of the only means to take Hawken out. But, if he brought everything else down first, the dragon man would go with it. After all, New York would be little more than a smoldering ash heap the day after next, and without anything left to fight for, Hawken would lose; the report Pitch had brought back after the attack on the university had alerted Malin to that much.

“As often said the higher the pedestal, the harder the fall,” Malin muttered. “I’ll admit you’ve built up quite a tall tower under you, Hawken, with your gifts and allies. It will be sweet music when I hear it get ripped out from underneath you.”


	32. Ten L'Esh Lipol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter with a different kind of title; hints early on, let me know if you figure out what it translates to.

_We’re beaten down_

_We cannot win_

_Our strength winnows_

_Our hope grows dim_

_We cry to you_

_O Lord of Hosts_

_Let your fire fall_

_When we need it most_

Sarah stared, dumbfounded, at the screen in front of her. “This is a joke, right?” she queried worriedly.

“Afraid not,” General Rickheimer replied wearily. “Both reports from the scout jets and satellite imaging have confirmed a fleet to double the current one, and forces have appeared in our allied countries the world over, drawing their militaries for defense. The United States is on our own in this fight and we cannot scramble our forces fast enough to hold our position here on the coast.” He sighed and slumped down into a nearby chair, rubbing his temples. “We’ve been pulling out the riders since exhaustion is catching up to them, and without them our allies and air forces are completely outmatched by the technology Malin has.”

Sarah sighed heavily; there was another option that she, Hawken, Hiccup and a few others had discussed prior to the start of all this, but it had been agreed as the last resort because they knew what the possible results could be. This, however, appeared to be a last-option situation now; any more time given to Malin and it would all end in his favor; they would not hold the coast, and he would push into the country interior. She turned to the screen in front of her, and pressed the force-wide com button.

“All teams pull out of the city and away from the coast,” she announced. “Hiccup, Hawken, you know who to call; this is the end-all situation.”

“What’s happened?” Hiccup asked back.

“No backup forces coming on our side, Malin’s fleet is about to double in about two hours, maybe less, and they’ve got a weapon we cannot analyze with them.”

Silence filled the coms, before Hiccup came back on. “We’ll be up in a few; I’ll gather Amethyst and the others.”

When the com switched out, Rickheimer stared at Sarah incredulously, eyes wide and eyebrows raised as far as they could go. “You just circumvented all protocol!” He exclaimed. “You’re pulling everyone out? We’ll lose our position for sure; the superiors won’t accept this!”

“Yes, but it will draw Malin in, and we’re going to take everything out then,” Sarah shot back. “You already said with where we stand and our current tactics we won’t win here.”

“But how are you going to possibly turn this around?”

Sarah’s expression darkened considerably; it wasn’t something she wanted to voice out loud. “As Robert Oppenheimer once said, ‘I am become death, o destroyer of worlds.’ We’ve had a contingent in place since before this started, as a last resort; it’s time it was used, unfortunately.”

* * *

Astrid slid off of Thorn as soon as they landed, looking truly furious.

“Shen slipped away again at the last minute, and we have no clue where he headed off to,” she groused. “This goes down he needs to go with it.”

<And the wargs are gathering all around the park,> Thorn added in. <They know we’ve headed out.>

I nodded. “So long as they’re all in one place it’ll be okay I think. We wait an hour for the rest of his fleet to move in, and then go through with the plan.”

At that proclamation, everyone went deathly silent, looking at me somberly.

“You…you do realize the risk you’re taking setting this off, right?” Sarah asked quietly. “I know we discussed this before and agreed on it, but I am not losing one of my best friends today.”

I sighed and nodded slowly. “Yes, I do. I came out of a smaller version unscathed once before, but this will be a different level entirely; I think, though, if it comes out for the worse, better one life than billions. There’s a reason I didn’t let my parents or sister know about it.”

“And once they find out they’ll do everything in their power to prevent you from going, Holly especially,” Amethyst said softly, walking up to me with a look reflecting her own thoughts on the decision. “You know that right? If you don’t come out of this”-

“Then focus on the chance of me doing okay, which is entirely possible and still likely,” I countered. “The balance has to be tipped, and it has to be done now; we all know Yah did not intend this to be how things ended. But, without a direct miracle from heaven like all the ships just blowing up, it’s going to be up to us to take this on.”

“Okay, so let’s say you do make it out alive, which I’m rooting for,” Hiccup spoke up. “These are mostly people, after all, even if they made the wrong choices. You…how are you going to be able to cope with the end result of that?”

That was a question I had been desperately hoping to avoid. Despite having been hardened to violence over the years by several battles, I had still never actually lost my extreme aversion to the taking of a life. Nightmares still plagued me every so often with images of death, what had happened in the past along with what I feared would come to pass in the future. But, one person’s mind compared to the loss of thousands, even millions of good people’s lives was an acceptable trade in my eyes. It was also my mind to decide over.

“I’m…I’m not going to be the same,” I admitted in barely a whisper. “Taking that much life is already haunting me, and it has been for a long time; I know what I’m capable of. I’m going to need all of you afterward; otherwise I don’t know what will happen. It’s what our team is really for, after all: holding each other up. So, that’s what I’m going to have to ask: be strong, so that I can be as well, because after this I am going to slip somewhere, I already know that.”

Silence reigned again, as we listened to the echoes of guns and bombs along the outer edges of the city, where our allied forces were still stalling the push of Malin’s army beyond its borders.

Then, Ember walked forward, and clasped her hand to my shoulder before moving to just hug me fully. “We’ll be here,” she promised. “You’ve brought all of us through one crisis or another at some point, and we’ve saved you in turn other times. We’ll pull through together again.”

At that, everyone else crowded around me, swarming me in a massive group embrace (even Tuffnut and Snotlout got involved, even if they didn’t act like they wanted to) that was completed by the dragons coming in around us as well. It shocked me a bit at first, the sudden display of mushy affection, before I returned the embrace as best as I could.

Once it lasted more than twenty seconds though, I began to fidget. “Uh, okay guys, it’s starting to get awkward,” I quipped. “Let’s, uh, save the touchy-feely for after this is all over, can we?”

“Nah, we’re gonna hug you now just in case,” Cami teased, causing everyone else to chuckle and squeeze me tighter to my chagrin.

* * *

An hour later, as hoped, the ships had all arrived, and were gathering in tight rows right in front of the New York harbor. No new troops had been discharged into the city yet; most had actually been pulled back or put to the city’s edge as Malin had noticed our sudden retreat, perhaps assuming we were planning to raze the metropolis ourselves. In the end, that would work to our advantage.

All dragons, the Asgard family, and our team had been gathered at the southwestern edge of the city, circled up with me in the center of the arrangement. Sarah was now back at the control compound observing the movements of our adversaries, and I was waiting for her go ahead. We’d had an explosive (pun not intended) argument with Rickheimer and his associates as they knew the damage that was likely to result to the city and the surrounding ocean, but in the end, they didn’t have another card to play that trumped the sheer force of numbers Malin had somehow managed to dredge up and organize. At least we were able to assure them that there would be no fatal radioactive fallout this time, unlike a conventional weapon.

“All targets in prime position, ground troops pulled back from the city,” Sarah’s voice came in over our coms. Her voice was trembling slightly as she spoke the words. “Sam, Denise, and Holly are secure in the naval base; we are free to…free to move forward.”

“Thanks Sarah,” I replied solemnly. “If things go wrong somewhere, get home at least and take care of your family while you can.”

“No, you had just better pull through this,” she warned half-jokingly, trying to lighten the mood a little. I chuckled darkly, before turning to the gathered crowd, my expression losing all semblances of amusement.

“Alright people, time to begin!” I announced. “Dragons first, other weapons following, then Hiccup, Amethyst, and Thor, you guys last so that we keep attention away for as long as possible. Embron and Twintail, you guys have the pyrokinetic power; direct everything to me. Go!”

Every dragon in the circle surrounding me immediately began spewing flame, the fires all coalescing due to the Nightmare and Zippleback bending the flows and turning the resulting vortices to funnel to me. Fire erupted and swirled around me, slowly disappearing as I pulled the raw energy and fuel out. I had used it before multiple times, but now again at a far greater scale: the Lightning Blazer’s capacity to convert and collect energy, storing it up for later at extreme levels. This time though, I was going to push that ability to the maximum.

I kept some of the fire swirling around me, condensed to be released later, and then nodded to Toothless and Amethyst; their fire would act as the true catalyst. Once combined with the electricity Hiccup and Thor would provide, the fusion would be nearly impossible to hold.

When the dragons had all exhausted their flames, the two Night Furies fired, scales fluorescing and Amethyst crackling electricity as they let loose. The blasts nearly knocked me over, my skin and the air around me already buzzing with the power overload I was just barely keeping contained even now. Then, my eyes flickered to Hiccup and Thor, and braced myself.

I could feel my body begin to glow when the lightning hit, streamers and auroras racing around me as the energy overload excited the very molecules of the air, the current I was concentrating unable to be fully held in.

I could not wait long lest I lost control and released everything, so as soon as the last bolt raced down to me, I spread my wings and took off, a glowing bullet racing over what was left of the city to the harbor. Already I could feel the fire reacting with the high energy and electricity coursing through and around me, the fusion happening even unintentionally. I had but seconds before everything went chain reaction and out of my hands, so I angled myself down, aiming straight for the middle of the grand fleet.

I flared my wings inches above the water, and slipped out of my pocket an object that only a handful of people knew I still had: an obsidian gemstone, glowing with a dark light within. It was the amplifier stone the turned Bewilderbeast had used in our battle with Drago and Jezebel; now, it would work for the other side.

Glancing up, I watched as for a split second an escaping pulse of energy racing off me let me see through the walls of the ships; I could see Malin, white-faced and panicking as he backed away in an attempt to find a safe location, and our eyes met.

“This is it,” I muttered, pressing down on the gem’s surface. The world went white.

* * *

They’d cleared out. Why had they all cleared out?

Malin was still scouring over the satellite images that were feeding into his ship hours after the report had come in. Perhaps the Oceanguard had managed to tap into the radio system again and had caught the one snippet about his intent to raze the city to the ground, but they’d gathered all along the edge of the metropolis, nowhere near a safe range from the weapon he intended to deploy. Perhaps they were planning on drawing him in and flattening the city themselves with his troops within, which in the end would only help him; Malin had very little care for the soldiers, and clearing the city only meant a larger shot for the weapon.

Still, he’d called the troops back to the city’s coast, as they would still be far more useful alive than dead, but still the other side hadn’t moved.

“Any word from Shen?” he called, hoping for some clear news.

“Shen has disappeared sir,” the man at the coms reported. “All the wolves are back on the ships, but Shen has appeared to have stationed somewhere beyond the city, likely awaiting the attack on the other side.”

“Well, I guess that works then,” Malin muttered. “Power up the chain beam; best to get it warming up now, no point in waiting longer.”

“Yes sir!”

The order went out, and Malin turned back to the aerial image. That’s when he saw it: all the dragons that had gathered to the southwest were loosing their flames at…Hawken.

“What on earth?” he queried confusedly, peering closer and enlarging the image. When the Night Furies began to release their own fuel, the female one charging hers with electricity, Malin began to grow truly concerned again.

“Prepare for an attack on the city’s southwestern flank,” he ordered into the intercom. “Suspicious activity is…”

He trailed off when the lightning struck, funneling in toward the dragon boy. Seconds later a glowing halo of a dragon took off, radiating pulses of power as he streaked in the direction of the fleet. Malin gained an inkling then of what was coming, and immediately turned to run into the depths of the ship, yelling into his headset.

“Get this ship out of here!” he screamed, barging through doors to reach the inner “safe” room his vessel was equipped with. “All vessels clear the area now! Fire the chain beam at the dragon, and do it now!”

Moments later he saw as much as felt a pulse of energy, and turned to look behind him. The walls had seemed to go transparent, and for a split second he spotted Hawken, hovering over the water some couple hundred yards away, as the young man pulled something out of the pocket at his side. They locked eyes for a moment, and then the younger vanished from sight as the energy pulse died off and something much worse took its place.

Malin stumbled through one final door and slammed it shut, but it wouldn’t be enough, he found, when the blast sent the vessel tumbling end over end, ripping apart and throwing him about within. One wall of the room met with his head, and everything darkened.

* * *

They watched, protected further behind a force field Aurianna had erected over them, as the sky lit up with a light that could not possibly be looked at directly. As it faded, in its place was a mushroom cloud that stretched thousands of feet upward, expanding rapidly across the bay. Moments later the shockwave ripped through the city, flattening any buildings that had been damaged in any manner and blowing the windows out of the rest.

The blast slammed into Aurianna’s field, the noise forcing everyone to cup their ears and the dragons to drop to the ground, despite it doing almost no good against the sheer volume. But, they kept watching the glowing, expanding cloud in the bay as the burning edges of it overtook the coast.

It took ten more minutes for the blast to truly die back, vapor and ash filling the sky and the light of burning plasma disappearing. Only then did Stoick dare to say the words he knew would set the entire force around him into a frenzy of action.

“Lord, please tell me he survived,” he whispered, before turning to address everyone. “Teams fan out, look for straggling forces and take care of them. Eret, Kingsley, and Jake, you’re in charge of finding the remaining creatures wherever they may be and removing them. Hiccup, Astrid, Cami, Ember, and Amethyst…”

They all tensed, waiting for the words they hoped he would say.

“…head to the bay, look for Hawken and anyone who might by whatever extraordinary circumstances have survived the explosion.”

They didn’t hesitate for a second, the Vikings and dragons named immediately taking to the air and racing toward the blast scene. Stoick sighed, and turned to the rest. “Gobber and Bertha, cover Staten Island, Valka will be with me in Queens. Odin, you and your family take the Manhattan district surrounding the park, and Heather, Embron, and Twintail will lead a portion to the Bronx area with Mogadon. We”-

“Stoick?! Stoick, are you there?!” Denise’s voice suddenly cut in over the chief’s com.

Stoick froze, knowing she and the rest of her family were kept purposefully unaware of Hawken’s plan; there was no way she was calling him directly about anything else. He took a deep breath before slowly answering. “Yes, Mrs. Carlton, I am here.”

“Is Hawken with you? We all saw the explosion go off beyond the city even from here, and I’ve been trying to reach him but he’s not answering his com.”

“Denise, uh…the-the blast was Hawken’s idea, a last resort as the incoming forces would have overwhelmed us. He’s…he was the one who set off the bomb; he was the bomb, really.”

Silence. Stoick knew the worst thoughts were running through Denise’s head, and if the other two were listening as well it was no better, so he spoke up again.

“Now look, several people are already out looking for him, and he’s survived something like this once before”-

“But that was nowhere near to the extent of this; he told us about that!” Denise exclaimed heatedly. “How could you let him do this?!”

“With all due respect, ma’am, as much sway as I have I can’t stop a shapeshifter with powers like that,” Stoick countered apologetically. “He would have gone out and done it anyway; at least this time we have a chance at really having won the war. Denise, I know, personally, how you’re feeling right now, but I swear we will find him. Your son is stronger than most would think; I am certain he’s okay.”

“He’d better be,” the young man’s mother growled, “or else I swear I will bring down anyone who helped in this myself!”

The com clicked off, and Stoick immediately felt the headache of the century begin working its way into his head. Valka walked up to him and laid a hand on her husband’s shoulder, making him look at her as she gave a soft smile.

“We’ll find him, and you know they’ll calm down,” she reassured.

“I hope so,” Stoick agreed. “Hawken is fierce enough when he gets mad; his family together is ten times that in a bad mood, even without the power.”


	33. Lo Tirah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per usual, props if you can tell me the translation of the title :)

_Darkness sweeps to horizon’s end_

_Blackened life beyond the bend_

_A chilling grasp calling fear_

_That danger’s voice forever near_

_Yet single sparks can stem the flow_

_Where light descends dark cannot go_

_Salvation’s touch will make all clear_

_When He arrives, you shall not fear_

Hiccup had seen the devastation of the full power explosions Night Furies could deliver, and still recalled clear as day the result of Hawken’s attack on Jezebel’s ships in their first battle with the sorceress.

This, however, was destruction on a completely different scale.

Black scorch marks burned clear across the rubble on the coast; the smoking husks of former soldiers, wargs, massive weapons and even the ships now scattered amongst the concrete. Here and there, even the concrete had been partly melted from extreme heat, or pulverized by the force exerted on it.

The water of the bay itself was steaming, streaks of oil and gasoline marring the surface and wavering in and out amongst floating wreckage, some of the slicks smoking with flames. Fires burned on what little hadn’t been shoved underwater or blown to bits, and nothing was moving under its own power as far as they could see.

<And I thought what we could do was dangerous,> Toothless marveled softly, eyes wide as he scanned the scene. <This…this is something entirely else. No wonder Hawken had nightmares about what he could do; how do you cope with doing this?>

“Best we find him soon then, lest he loses it over seeing the damage as the first thing when he comes around,” Hiccup replied solemnly. “He was in mostly Night Fury form when he came out here, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find a dragon with a coat on floating around out here, right?” He gave a shaky grin, before the smile fell from his face as he glanced around again: the closest whole ship was three miles away, and even that had fires raging upon its deck.

It was Astrid who finally spotted him about thirty minutes later, a lump of blackish scales with leathery wings and a dark Myscale coat floating splayed out across the stained water.

“Guys, over here! I found him!” she yelled into her com. Thorn shot off a blast to give a visual signal, before they dove down. “Hawken! Can you hear me? Hawken!”

The semi-dragon didn’t respond or move, but something else in the water did. Astrid stifled a scream as a huge object made the water roil beneath the half-dragon, and a mouth with rows of burnt, battered teeth opened and rose up toward the motionless figure.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Astrid screamed, angling Thorn toward the Kaiju as she pulled a spare dagger from her side. The Nadder flared her wings just above the water, and both she and Astrid let loose a hail of projectiles into the creature’s snout. The pain that resulted was just enough to make the monster jerk away in response, the jaws snapping shut just shy of Hawken’s tail, before it growled and turned its attention toward the flying pair. The look in its scarred eyes made a chill run down Astrid’s spine.

A screaming whistle rose up in the air, and moments later twin charges, both of them electrically enhanced, slammed into either side of the Kaiju’s head, directly into its eyes and driving deep before detonating. As what was left fell back into the depths, Astrid looked up and sighed with relief.

“Nobody tries to eat my brother!” Amethyst shrieked, scales fluorescing violet, as Toothless and Hiccup both echoed her sentiments, watching the body disappear from sight. Then the trio dove down, Amethyst grabbing the semi-dragon underneath his arms and Toothless hoisting up his tail. The pair lifted Hawken free of the water and turned to head for land, Hiccup looking between them as he scanned Hawken’s body for any signs of movement or life. Astrid circled around behind and kept watch for any other possible threats, and was the first to leap into action when they reached a non-smoking part of the shore and set Hawken down.

“Roll him onto his back,” Astrid ordered, stepping out of the way as Toothless carefully did so, before pressing her fingers against Hawken’s neck. A slow, shallow pulse greeted her, but no movement of breath; he was waterlogged.

“Amethyst, place pressure here,” Astrid directed, pointing to Hawken’s lower chest. “And carefully, we don’t want to break ribs but we need to get the water out of his lungs or he’ll shut down. Lucky he was in dragon form or he would have already passed. Okay, press on one, two, three!”

Amethyst pressed down, forcing a small amount of water out of Hawken’s mouth, but he didn’t start breathing.

“Again: one, two, three!”

They repeated the move a couple of times, before Hawken suddenly heaved and coughed, gallons of saltwater spilling out before whatever he’d last eaten followed behind in reflex. Holding down her own bile, and ignoring as Hiccup turned green, Astrid had the two Night Furies turn him over again so that everything drained out and he didn’t inhale it again, and the semi-dragon coughed and heaved for a couple of minutes more, before settling into a more relaxed breathing rhythm. He remained unconscious, however.

“Let’s get him back to base,” Hiccup ordered, turning on his com. “Hey Dad, let the Carltons know that we’ve got Hawken, and he’s alive, but unconscious at the moment. We’re bringing him to the academy now, as soon as we find”-

“Hey guys!” Camicazi yelled, sweeping in on Stormfly with Ember and Orha right behind them. The Mood Dragon had something gripped very tightly in her claws.

“Never mind, they found us,” Hiccup amended, before turning to address the Bog Burglar. “What on earth did you dredge up this time?”

“Oh, you’ll enjoy this,” Cami replied, a dark smirk evident even in her voice. “Look who I found floundering in the water a ways off!”

Stormfly flared her wings, and threw the figure in her grip toward Hiccup. The man tripped and stumbled before falling flat on his face at Hiccup’s feet, covering his multitude of bruises and cuts with a healthy layer of dirt and ash. As he shakily climbed to his knees, Hiccup stepped forward, his own scowl deepening.

“Well, well, would you look who it is,” he growled. “You’re going to be really sorry soon that you didn’t die in the explosion.”

Malin barely had the chance to look up straight before the Night Fury rider reared back and socked him as hard as he could in the nose. Malin rocked back from the force, lifted up to his feet even, and stumbled backward one, two steps before slumping to the ground, out cold and sporting a broken and bleeding nose to go with his numerous already present bumps.

“Wow, Hiccup!” Cami exclaimed, taken aback by the young man’s suddenly forward attitude. “Maybe you should hit people more often; it’s got quite the effect!”

“No, no, it’s reserved only for the people who most deserve it,” Hiccup quipped back, rubbing his left hand and glaring at the unconscious person at his feet. “Come on; let’s get Hawken and this trash back. We’ll figure out what to do with him after Hawken wakes up.”

“Please tell me it will involve some form of great pain,” Astrid asked, only half joking as one hand gripped the handle of her axe.

Hiccup snorted. “For once, I wholeheartedly agree with that notion.”

* * *

I woke up a day and a half later, to the news that Malin had been found at the same time I was, and had been transported under heavy anesthetics to a nearby high-security prison, awaiting our presence for the decision on what to do with him as Malin’s greatest offenses were still directed toward me, my family, and the greater population of Berk in addition to the already accepted beyond doubt war crimes. The US government had already issued a request for a death penalty, but how was up to us.

Hiccup and the others were also adamantly trying to keep me from looking up the result of the explosion (they had taken me a long ways away from it), but had I been allowed to access a computer it wouldn’t have made much difference. Each of those ships had held upwards of several hundred people minimum, enemies or not, so I knew that what I did had resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands. I also knew that had Malin been allowed to win the fight, the eventual result would have been a death toll in the millions or more. Battles were still raging elsewhere in the world thanks to him despite his ultimate loss here, so Malin’s reach was still removing thousands of lives.

I had, however, managed to learn that he’d ticked us all off badly enough for even Hiccup to straight up punch him when he was already down because of this and all he’d already done.

Work had already begun when I, the rest of the team, and the four chiefs that had followed us into war joined General Rickheimer in visiting the prison Malin had been placed in. Several thick doors took us deep into the building, to a room with an equally thick window behind which was Malin, strapped tight to a chair with thick leather and metal belts and cuffs, nearly tight enough to slow circulation; his hands were turning pale. A guard nearby entered a code into the console on the wall, and the hydraulic locks on the door to the room released, letting us in as we lined up along the wall.

“My, my, what an audience I still manage to gain even in my last shots at life,” Malin chuckled, watching us walk in passively. He didn’t move, still under the effects of not only the drugs but the extensive injuries he’d sustained during the blast; a great welt rose up on his head, and purple and green bruises ran along his face and likely across his body under his clothes. Nose bandaged, his hair matted and messy, he looked fully worn down, yet somehow there was still an amused glint in his eyes, like he knew something truly pleasing to him that the rest of us were missing even now.

“Yer not in a position to be making stupid jokes, Malin,” Jake snapped, his tail vibrating furiously as he tried to keep it still despite his anger.

Malin only leered at the rattler. “Lot of talk coming from the traitor to the cause you were made for.”

“I chose the winning side, and more importantly the right side, despite the hold you thought you had on me,” Jake replied tightly. “Ye had the chance to just forgive and forget, but instead yer beaten and bruised, tied up in a chair in a cell.”

“Alright, that’s enough!” Stoick snapped, taking control of the room with one sentence. “Jonathan Malin, a verdict has already been handed to us by the governing body of this country calling for your death. When that is sentenced, and by what means, has been left up te us. If you assist us in cleaning up the rest of the mess ye’ve left, that death may be put off for a time, and it can be quick and painless. Leave us with nothing, and Mogadon and I will have little hesitation in dragging you to the highest peak in Berk today and bringing back the old tradition of the Blood Eagle for one more instance.”

“There’s no cleaning it up!” Malin shot back, still not losing that infuriating grin. “The other fleets have committed to fight to the last breath as every other has. I won’t personally see the fulfillment of my end of the deal I made with the devil, but things have already been set in motion and it won’t stop. You don’t have any means of curbing what’s coming.”

“I’m starting to get really sick of your cryptic quibbles,” I snapped. “No, scratch that, they infuriated me from the start and I just haven’t been able to shut you up since. You no longer have the forces to take on even one small country for more than a week, and you personally won’t be there to see any sort of victory, however small, that might occur. It’s done, give it up.”

“You say it’s done because you miss the bigger image I see,” Malin chuckled, leaning toward us. “I was supposed to get rid of you, which sadly I’ve more or less failed to do, but someone or something else might still get lucky. But, we might just succeed in destabilizing the rest of the world; strain the limits, and regimes begin to crumble, people start looking for anything to bring them back up, even dictators and world governing powers which wait even now. The war was only plan A, and still accomplished something.”

“And what was plan B?” Camicazi growled.

Malin straight up burst out laughing. “Fool! You think I would tell you?” he guffawed, eyes twitching as he resisted the urge to react to the pain his movements caused. “I already told you that there is nothing you can do to prevent it, whether I die or not. It was in motion as soon as the dragon boy blew up my ships, and I have no intention of reversing it. After all, I am going to die one way or another as you said, so I might as well ensure everyone else on this blasted planet goes with me!”

His words dissolved into cackling laughter again, falling into what one could only describe as a state of pure madness. Astrid kept Camicazi from leaping forward and just taking Malin’s head off as she fumed over him outright calling her a fool. While death was on the table, we didn’t really need to be scarring everyone further with a semi-public gruesome display to carry out the sentence. A part of me regretted not asking at least Sif to come along to try and pick something out of the madman’s head before we ended it.

That was when Malin suddenly cut off his laughter, freezing and tensing up in his chair as a choked scream replaced the former noise. He shook violently, twitching and jerking for a minute as lines of purple and red appeared across his neck and the unbruised portions of his face.

Then, he slowly sank back into the chair, muscles relaxing and going limp before he finally released one last exhalation, eyes turning to gaze unseeing at the ceiling. Jonathan C. Malin lay there, no longer alive on this earth.

The sudden shock over, all our eyes traveled downward. No one had taken notice of Kingsley, ever quiet as he normally was, coiling up at the base of the chair. A look of equal parts haunting and resolve clashed in his expression.

“We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with him, everyone knows that,” he explained softly. “This way no one else has to take on the task, and it’s a simple death. It’s over.”

“Oh, Kingsley,” I said softly, kneeling down as he slithered over to me. “Anyone else could have done it, why would you take on that burden?”

“Because the rest of you already carry enough on your shoulders as it is,” he replied, climbing up onto my arm. “Me? I’ve been the shy one that hung back unless I had to get involved.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, “you’re a lot more than that and you should know it.” Then, much to his and everyone else’s surprise, I hugged the cobra tightly.

A minute or so later, Stoick cleared his throat, garnering everyone’s attention again. “Well, we have nothing more that we can do here,” he said, clapping his hands together somewhat unenthusiastically. “If chiefin’ has taught me one thing, it’s that there are a lot of loose ends that are going te need tying up here. And, I don’t know about you all, but I’ve got a handful of prisoners to deal with back on Berk as well.”

“Oooh! Can we torture Dagur?” Tuffnut immediately inquired, having somehow immediately figured out who Stoick was talking about. Stoick opened his mouth to shoot down the idea, before a glint appeared in his eyes that I was not expecting.

“We’ll…discuss that back in the village, shall we?”

Immediately the twins went slack-jawed in shock, before cheering wildly.

“Well, that’s an unexpected change,” Hiccup drawled, before glancing at me. “We’re wanted in DC to help wrap this mess up, if you’re feeling well enough, so should we get going? Ember and Astrid, you were wanted too.”

“What about me?” Camicazi asked, causing Hiccup to chuckle.

“The more on our side, the better,” he answered. “Don’t know about you guys, but I for one am not a fan of sitting in a room alone with a bunch of frustrated government officials.”

“Wait, what about Malin’s threat?” Fishlegs piped up, silencing us all again. “If he wasn’t just bluffing, which there wasn’t a point in doing, what if there is another surprise on the way to deal with as well?”

“Well, if it comes to that, not much we can do but deal with it then,” Ember replied. “Not much else now but tackled what we can in the present moment.”

She was right too. As we all began splitting up, to take care of the respective duties we had before us, that thought hung over us like a phantom, always there to be mused over but unable to be handled. Sleep was certainly going to be rough at best until everything calmed down.


	34. Attack of the Fangirls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a bit of a break from the serious, now for a moment of the ridiculous...and something any character come to life would probably eventually deal with...

_“Celebrities should be thankful that the most they generally have to deal with are overly nosy paparazzi and the occasional creepy stalker. When you’re someone who was supposed to be a fictional character once upon a time (not trying to make a pun there but it works) and the general populace suddenly gets word that you’re real and traveling around, some of the most frightening aspects of humanity really come out to play then. Go figure Astrid and company don’t have to worry too much, even with all the ideas people get about them at least they scare people. But me? Might as well have a bright red painted target on my back that says ‘Kidnap him!’ for all the crazy internet freaks seem to care.”_

_-Hiccup_

More often than not, the hardest part of a war is not in fighting it, but dealing with the bureaucratic logistics, complaints, red tape, and clean-up that comes avalanching down afterward.

Battles had continued to rage against dozens of countries worldwide (Britain, Australia, Greece, China, Russia, an attack on Israel even that was almost amusingly rapidly thwarted just to name a few) for another week and a half after the one in New York had ended, prompting attention to be thoroughly divided between that and continuing domestic focuses.

Me, Hiccup, and a few of the others were run dry in an entirely new manner in the process (did you know how many contracts there are to haggle over and sign in order to deal with just covering our backs in case we violated any laws while defending ourselves?); many people had begun to paint us as heroes, defenders of the country, but an immense number had also begun to voice their opinions that we should be demanded to provide some form of repayment for the damage that had been caused, never mind the fact that if we hadn’t been there, they’d be dead. It took three days alone to draft an appeasement to the problem of compromising for both sides: awards were to be given to those who had participated in the fight (despite the adamant objections from Hiccup and I that they weren’t necessary; it was a need, not a want, to fight after all), but the money and other donations that were already being sent as thanks to us in ignorance of said objections would be funneled into aiding repairs to the New York City region and the other areas along the coast that had been separately attacked. Damages were already being estimated in the range of $100 billion or more, and the lives lost…more than 90,000 on our side just on US soil in the span of only a few days. In the fallout after, and in the aftermath of the war that had raged around the world, the number had climbed into the millions. Malin had not pulled his punches.

All of us remained wound up as well, expecting some new attack that never came from Malin’s declaration before he died; after all, we’d found no evidence of large white bird feathers anywhere in the blast zone, so we feared Shen was still at large. The only really unusual things that occurred were from something completely unrelated: a few science snippets on the news such as a new iceberg that had calved off the Ross Ice Shelf, about 40% larger than the previous record holder, and some funky weather that was expected over the Midwest thanks to the Jetstream shifting yet again, but that was it. On the topic of conflicts and supernatural threats, airwaves were silent.

So, after several days of being stuck well out of our element in a tangle of political webs, I suggested to everyone left that we take a breather to go on a tour of some of the landmarks in D.C. Hiccup and I had great interest in checking out the Smithsonian, and Ember, Astrid, Camicazi, Holly…girls will be girls no matter how tomboyish they normally are, and they headed off on their own to try and do some shopping. We would see them later of course, as Holly wanted to come to the museum as well, but for now boys and girls went our separate ways.

As soon as Hiccup, Toothless, and I landed, one very clear side-effect of not only the recent war but who was with me made itself known: we were there to see the exhibits, but we ourselves had begun gathering a rather large crowd that followed us like we were an attraction in our own right. No matter how long people had known about me, a famous and beloved dragon and his equally (perhaps more) beloved rider were stare magnets.

“Ugh, we’re going to be gawked at like this for months, aren’t we?” Hiccup groaned, ducking in behind a corner with Toothless as cameras started popping out.

I snorted. “So long as you’re in a public place, absolutely. Hang on, I’ll try and help a bit.” I turned my head in the direction of the crowd, and barked out harshly, “Hey! Show a little bit of courtesy to someone trying to enjoy the museum, or the next person who flashes a camera will find it frozen solid!”

As if just to test my patience, another shutter clicked. My eyes narrowed and I zeroed in on the young man holding it, before letting out a resigned sigh. “Well, you were warned, and you didn’t take me seriously, so…”

A shot of ice later, a cry of despair following, and the crowd rapidly began to disperse, though attention stayed pretty well rooted on the Berkian pair. I shook my head in resignation and nodded my head away, gesturing for the two to follow me. After all, we had a whole lot of museum to cover and little time to do so.

As we crossed the commons toward the aeronautics building, Hiccup slowed down and glanced around; the sun was high in the sky, clouds were few, and even though it was already early December, temperatures were pleasantly warm. The whole east coast had been experiencing an unusually warm late fall, save for a couple isolated storms like the one that hit New York during the war, and we were among many trying to make the most of it. Plus, no one was bothering us at the moment.

“Now this is the kind of experience I actually enjoy,” Hiccup said softly. “No rush for a bit or life-and-death situations to be stuck in, just exploring with a couple of friends.”

<And no nosy paparazzi wannabes trying to get pictures or other souvenirs,> Toothless agreed. <I had thought the politicians and legislators would be at least a little more level-headed; who knew so many of them would turn out to be DreamWorks fans?>

“At least few people are stupid enough to provoke a Night Fury,” Hiccup remarked. “They have a lot less issue with sidling up against a skinny non-threatening Viking. I mean, it helps when looking for strings to pull in political compromises, but still.”

I chuckled, recalling that uncomfortable moment for him several days prior, before glancing off to my left. “Anyway, you two go on ahead, or just stand here and enjoy it if you want; I’ll catch up in a moment.”

“Where are you going?”

“Nature calls, and there’s a restroom nearby. Surely you don’t need that one explained?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Okay, see you in a minute then.”

* * *

“Okay, okay, get the dart ready! This might be our only shot; they’re coming this way quick!”

“Ah! Don’t drop it, that thing cost me a fortune!”

Several young females, most no older than eighteen years old, scrambled about as they readied their supplies and got into position. Maylin grabbed the handkerchief at her side and wrapped it around her hands, eyeing Hiccup in an expression that could only be described as predatory hunger.

When the first images and videos had appeared online of Hawken, especially when he kept showing up in forms they all recognized as the HTTYD dragons (Night Fury most often), rumors had run through some of the fan communities that he could have some actual link to the creatures they all adored, but it wasn’t until the days leading up to the recent war that the real excitement had exploded on the forums: Berk was real, and so were _all_ the characters they knew and loved. Most people were relatively sane about it, hoping opportunities would show up for them to visit of meet some of them, but others…well, one should never underestimate the stupidity of humans in large groups.

Maylin knew it was harebrained, but she helped lead the plan anyway to meet at least a couple of them, up-close and personal, by whatever means they could. When it was clear several were not leaving the capitol region for quite some time, ridiculous plans started forming, and a frightening number of people signed on. Some of the girls already lived in the area, one even with resources to set up a location to hold their beloved characters if the opportunity arose, and Maylin and the others had flown in first chance they got when word of Hiccup and company continuing to stay in Washington, D.C. got out. The only problem was, the female Vikings they knew were not easily cornered, and they were always with Hawken’s sister, a young teen who had proven painfully adept at spotting the sneaks in the bushes if the vanishing black dragon didn’t do so first, and Hiccup and Toothless were always hanging around Hawken, the dragon man who seemed able to spot trouble a mile away.

This one time, though, those two were walking alone, and approaching the line of bushes the girls had camped out behind. The brunette next to the red-headed Maylin, named Cassandra, lifted the pressurized tube in her hands, loaded with a smuggled tranquilizer dart, up to her eye level, targeting Toothless’ neck. As the pair stepped into a shadier part of the path, she pulled the trigger.

Toothless immediately felt the sting in his side, and whipped around, expecting to have brushed up against a flower and angered a bee or something, but instead as he twisted his neck, he felt the metal shaft rub against his scales.

<Hiccup?> he barked urgently.

Hiccup turned to see what was wrong, and just barely caught a glimpse of Toothless reaching over to paw the dart off his neck before someone grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms down as a second assailant gagged his mouth.

“Mmmph!” he gasped against the muffling cloth, catching Toothless’ attention back, whose head turned around and eyes narrowed as he took in the pair of young women tying up his rider. The dragon took a threatening step forward, wings flaring out, before his foot suddenly folded under him.

<Oh no,> he gasped as he fell to the sidewalk, vision going foggy and only hampered further when his lower jaw met concrete.

Hiccup struggled hard, nearly smashing his head into Maylin’s, but she ducked out of the way in time and continued cinching down the knots on his hands. Her arm brushed against the suddenly exposed arm of Framherja in the process however, sending a burning jolt through her.

“Oww!” she hissed, glaring at the offending weapon, though now it only began to pique her interest. “Don’t touch the bow!” she ordered to her partner, Dara. “Team two! Toothless incapacitated, get him out of sight and into the truck!”

Twisting Hiccup around, she smirked at him before pushing the Viking behind the vegetation and toward a covered pickup that sat in the maintenance lot behind the nearest building. “Come on, handsome, we won’t hurt you,” Maylin reassured in the most uncomforting fashion. “Just don’t struggle too much and this trip should be easy enough on you.” She glanced back at the others, who had roped up the Night Fury and were dragging him along as well. “There’re some people who are dying to get to know you a little better.”

* * *

“Hiccup?”

No answer, and no sign of them in the building. Turning back to the commons, I tried again. “Hiccup?”

This certainly wasn’t like him, or Toothless, to just disappear like that. I had expected them to be waiting at the aeronautics museum, but they were nowhere to be found. Nobody had seen them enter there either, apparently.

I growled and materialized my com, switching on to Hiccup’s link. “Hiccup, if you don’t pick up I’ll tell Astrid that it was you and not the twins who hid her armbands in the smoking house as a prank a couple months ago.” If anything was going to make him give up the ghost and answer, that would be it.

Instead, I got nothing at all, and a chill ran down my back. Turning on my heels, I marched fully back out the doors and into the commons area again. Kneeling to the ground and morphing Viperwyrm, I slid along, scenting the path. Up to the doors, I picked up no trace of Night Fury or Viking; they’d never even reached the building. How’d they manage to get in trouble in broad daylight, and in a very public place like this no less? We were in the middle of the National Mall for crying out loud!

I slithered on further, ignoring the strangled gasps as people spotted what to them just looked like a twenty-foot snake sliding along the public sidewalk. Finally, along a stretch of shaded bushes that would more or less have been on their way from where we’d started, I picked up a trail again, both scents plenty strong here. Moments later, though, I picked up a very different set of smells: chemicals, the kind found in hospitals or veterinary offices, and with a similar tang to that of Speed Stinger venom; Toothless had been darted with a tranquilizer. Turning my head slightly, I caught the smell of the responsible party: several young women, most of them clearly not even twenty years of age. Worse, it was also clear they were _hormonal_ women. Sometimes, hypersensitive smell was not a blessing.

<Oh, just what we bloody needed,> I growled, morphing back and switching on the com again. “Holly and Astrid and company, come in: we’ve got ourselves another problem to deal with.”

A bit of static answered before Astrid popped in first. “Yeah, what happened?”

“Somehow Hiccup and Toothless got themselves kidnapped in broad daylight.”

“What?! More of Malin’s men? Where were you?”

“I took a restroom detour, alright? And no, it’s not Malin’s supporters, this is worse: some rather coordinated and very excited girls in the How to Train Your Dragon fandom.”

“Oh no, not fangirls,” Holly’s voice chimed in, every syllable dripping with contemptuous understanding. “They managed to get together this early on? Really?”

“I’m going to follow their trail, you guys get on your dragons and follow me,” I ordered. “I’ll leave a fog trail to follow.”

“Got it, we’ll be over immediately,” Astrid answered. Then, before she fully tuned out, I caught her growling, “I swear if they do _anything_ to him I’ll”-

I didn’t need to hear the rest to understand, sharing the same sentiments. “Figures Hiccup, only you would manage to get abducted by the internet freaks barely a week after we’re done fighting,” I muttered exasperatedly, turning in the direction of the scent trail as Griffin wings flared out. If they knew how to tranq a Night Fury these over-excitable girls may have had an inkling of the risks they were taking, but they had no idea of the full extent of what they were playing with; presently; fire came in many forms, and I didn’t have the worst kind to give for once.

* * *

“Come on, come on, we might not have a lot of time before someone catches on!” Maylin urged. In her hands was a camera, snapping away a mile a minute to capture images of her and the dozens of other guys and girls who had gathered in the otherwise empty warehouse (conveniently owned by one of said parties present) alongside Hiccup and a very reluctantly and tightly bound up Toothless. They had been smart enough to realize that as the tranquilizer wore off, the Night Fury wouldn’t be peaceful in any manner, especially when his eyes snapped open and his dorsal scales began fluorescing a second later.

Others in the crowd were rapidly taking sketches and measurements of the two, savoring this chance to be _disturbingly_ close to them, and the more adventurous were taking advantage of Hiccup and Toothless’ current inability to fight back, poking and prodding them _wherever_ they felt inclined. A few of them were even daring to try and kiss either of the pair; what little movement Hiccup and Toothless did have allowed them to cause some bruises as a retaliation, but little else.

“I swear, of all the things I have had to experience, this is by far one of the worst!” Hiccup snapped. “My God, what is _wrong_ with you people?! Even Hawken was nuts over the movies but at least he can be rational! You have any idea how many laws you’re breaking right now?”

“Always with the witty chatter, huh handsome?” Maylin smirked. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, not like we’re going to let some petty regulations get in the way. Gee though, I thought you’d be the type to enjoy the attention!”

“A few fans, some autographs maybe, approached in a _decent_ manner,” Hiccup snapped, “but not a dozen perverted girls who think they have some sort of disgusting right to poke and touch me and Toothless even in places _no one_ \- HEY!”

He attempted kicking at one such daring teen, who jumped back at the outburst, but they just turned back and looked at him predatorily.

“Alright, next phase!” Maylin announced. “Full body photos and sketches were requested. You and you,” she gestured to a young man and another red-haired woman nearby, “Help me get his shirt off!”

“Uh, he’s got like a full suit on.”

“Okay then, we’ll pull the whole thing off! Not like it’s that big a deal.”

“Not a big deal?!” Hiccup screeched, writhing against the ropes they’d used to tie him to the metal support pole he was against and cursing the fact that he could neither reach Framherja on his back, nor the rest of his Mysteel swords or Inferno that were now being tinkered with by a group of geeks off in the corner. “There are laws in every country against abuse like this! Every one of you could be imprisoned or worse back on Berk for something like this! Don’t you dare-!”

The moment they grabbed his collar, an alarm went off nearby, beeping loudly and causing everyone in the room to tense up, followed a second later by the side of the warehouse exploding inward. Those nearest to the fire dove out of the way and covered their heads desperately, and the rest backpedaled frantically away from the force, only just beginning to realize the trouble they were probably in.

Out of the resulting billowing dust cloud, a Mysteel throwing dart came hurtling toward Maylin. It caught the sleeve of her shirt in such a way as to jerk her back, pinning the young woman against the wall behind Hiccup. She screamed in surprise and a touch of fear, before her eyes whipped back toward the clearing dust.

At first, nobody recognized the black-and-red clad young teen who followed the dart into the room, a second already twirling between her fingers. Burning eyes, bright green in exasperation, locked onto the already pinned woman.

Then, at least for Maylin, it clicked. “Holly,” she said in a near-whisper.

“Good, you know who I am,” Holly growled, stepping forward with all the grace of a leopard, and all the venom of a Piffleworm in her movements. “This was a really stupid thing you did, you know that? In return, I want you to meet some of my dear friends who can show you just how imbecilic. Hawken, you want to-hey! Where do you think you’re going?!”

The group of teenage boys that had taken Hiccup’s weapons to play with were attempting to slip along the wall toward the nearby door. At Holly’s notice, they bolted, running for the exit with weapons still in hand.

They didn’t get far; the dart still in Holly’s grip suddenly slammed into the wall right in front of the lead boy, slowing him down right before an unseen assailant hurled them into the middle of the floor at her feet. Moments later Orha and Ember showed themselves, towering over the group as Holly closed the distance.

“Thanks Ember. I think I’ll take that”- she yanked Inferno from the hands of the first, whirling and punching him in the process, “-and those”- same treatment met the pair holding onto Hiccup’s engraved and unmarked swords, “-and you’re also going to give me those before you blow yourselves up, as entertaining as that might be!” She scooped up Inferno’s spare canisters last of all, roundhouse-kicking the two boys that had commandeered them as she stepped away.

Astrid, meanwhile, was marching up toward Maylin, whipping out her axe as Amethyst stalked up to stand over Toothless, her scales fluorescing violet and sparking with electricity as she glared at the young people cowering behind the bound dragon.

“I should really take your head off for this!” Astrid hissed, her axe flashing in front of Maylin’s nose dangerously close. “Yeah, I already saw the lip prints on both of them; Hiccup has a girlfriend, if you hadn’t managed to gather that by now, and Toothless is spoken for as well, you sick freaks!” She jerked her thumb to where Amethyst was slicing through Toothless’ bonds, freeing him and scaring the gathered people even more; there was a reason they’d kept him tied down after all.

Sure enough, as soon as the muzzle came off Toothless let out a shriek that sent everyone but the Vikings and dragons cringing to the floor, before he leapt over to Hiccup, firing once and taking off his ropes as well.

“Anything you want to do before we wrap this up?” Astrid asked the pair in faux sweet tones. Hiccup, glancing around as Holly handed his weapons back, let his eyes darken. It wasn’t often he got pissed enough to drop his usual forgiving nature, but this wasn’t most situations.

“Actually, yes,” he growled, turning and pointing at one particular group of young women flattening themselves against the wall. “Toothless? Care to pin them?”

“With pleasure,” the Night Fury snapped, sending another shock through the few in the room who had missed out on the revelation of his ability to speak, and the tone of his voice sent the accused few scrambling. They didn’t get far before both Toothless and Amethyst swept their tails in, pinning all six to the wall, right next to the still-helpless Maylin under Astrid’s grip. Unable to move, most of them closed their eyes, expecting something terrible as Hiccup walked up to them, unslinging Framherja. They’d all been told to avoid the bow, but none had been informed why; they feared they’d be finding out shortly.

“This is Framherja,” Hiccup explained. “One shot from her and I could deal as much damage as a Skrill blast if I chose.” To emphasize he pulled back her string, the crackling bolt forming in the gap. “But, I’m going to be the better person and, despite you six in particular being truly deserving of some horrible repercussions -and yes, I know _exactly_ what you intended- I’ll leave you with just this reminder, okay?”

He slackened his grip on the string and then swung the bow, barely tapping each of them in the process, but it was enough. The contact made them yelp and gasp from the burning jolt it left behind, and then the two Night Furies swept their tails up and away, letting them all drop unceremoniously to the floor.

“We’re done here,” Hiccup growled out with finality, nodding to Astrid. She put away her axe (somewhat reluctantly), letting Maylin get in a sigh of relief before Astrid swung around just as fast as a snake’s strike, punching the other woman across the jaw.

“That’s for both kidnapping Hiccup _and_ Toothless, and especially for thinking you could ever try and keep them like pets!” she hissed, turning and stalking up to Hiccup, hugging him fiercely and planting a forceful kiss on his lips to make her point, which he gladly returned.

“Glad you’re mostly safe, again,” she said as they parted.

“So am I,” Hiccup returned, both of them looking over to Holly. The younger turned and whistled, the two Nadders she and Astrid rode stepping aside and letting a new figure that she’d called earlier walk inside.

There wasn’t a soul in the room who didn’t know who this was now, even if he wasn’t human at the moment. The Griffin glanced around, eyes morphing through several colors as he did so, tail waving and feathered wings twitching. Any doubts on his identity vanished as he morphed fully, shrinking back to the young man clad in a long black coat that he usually was.

“All of you have not only violated several local and federal laws, and in addition interrupted a much-needed period of rest for all of us,” Hawken spoke clearly and with finality, eyes fixing on every perpetrator in the room, “but attempted to kidnap respected heroes and family to us as well as the heir to the Berk chiefdom. That comes with quite a heavy price: authorities have already been contacted, and you will be serving the sentences that you’ve reaped; hope it was worth it, especially those of you still young enough to have to deal with your parents.” He chuckled. “I almost pity you. Almost.”

Hawken’s gaze turned then to Hiccup and company. “Come on, we’re leaving this circus. Officers?”

As the Vikings, dragons, and of course Holly and Hawken vacated the blast hole they’d made in the side of the building, local law enforcement flooded inward, taking care of the rest of the situation from there.

Out in the sun, Hiccup slung Framherja on his back and glanced with great disgust behind him one last time, letting out a shudder. “Gotta say this at least once,” he muttered, drawing knowing smiles from everyone; they already knew what he was going to say.

“I HATE fangirls!!”


	35. The False Revelation

_In final times_

_The ground will quake_

_Fire will rage_

_And Hell awake_

_The wrath of Yah_

_Shall henceforth call_

_The wicked burn_

_And Satan fall_

_A darkened cloud_

_Over earth descend_

_As in Revelation_

_Quoth the end_

Despite not being as directly affiliated with Berk as her son was, Denise had found herself being kept very busy over the month or so that followed the war. Calls and letters, emails of all sorts, flooded in as questions and requests (some of extreme importance, some better left for the garbage and never read) streamed from every corner of the globe. Luckily enough for her, if she couldn’t answer them, then Zipeau, Feren, or Delta seemed always knowledgeable enough to come up with decent replies (Embron, skilled at politics and persuasive arguments, had become a bit of a family ambassador and so was being kept busy elsewhere and unable to lend a paw).

When the call came that Hawken, Hiccup, and the others still in D.C. were about to come home now that things were finally settling down, Denise let out a great sigh of relief.

“They’re on their way guys!” she called into the house, to which several voices answered with cheer. Sasha, who’d made it a point to act as household guard, turned his head from his spot by the front door toward the kitchen.

“Good; it’ll be easier to ward off all the nosy reporters and such with dragon boy actually at the house to help,” he jokingly quipped.

“Hey, you’re the one who took up that job voluntarily,” Teshra replied, sauntering through the living room.

“Note pointed sarcasm, Tesh.”

“Noted; someone’s got to keep the blunt humor of Hawken around while he’s gone though,” the little dragon toned amusedly, fluttering up onto Denise’s shoulder to peer down at the papers strewn across the table. In passing, she also noted that the woman no longer flinched at her sudden close proximity. “Ugh, it never ends, does it?”

“Not by a long shot,” Denise agreed, turning to her computer. “At least when it was just Hawken at large the questions came in maybe a handful a week. I should ask for Loki and Aurianna to stop by again to help answer some of these; they pertain to them more and they’re still all on Berk.”

Opening up the web search engine on her laptop, the present news articles popped up as usual. Denise moved to click away from them and go about her business as usual, before one of them caught her eye. Curious, she opened the link, and she and Teshra began reading the article that followed the headline.

It took all of ten seconds for alarm bells to begin going off in both their heads.

“Oh no,” Teshra whispered, “it’s really not over yet, is it?”

“I need to get ahold of Hawken,” Denise said, immediately standing up and rushing over to where she kept her phone, fumbling through her purse for the device.

* * *

The call I received sent me into a state of worry that had only compounded what I’d already begun to feel. On the East Coast, the weather had been incredibly nice, temperatures much higher than they should normally be in December. Meteorologists had been writing it off as a lengthy Indian summer, warm air drifting up from the south as the Jetstream coiled north along the Canadian Shield and Greenland. Those of us who were still dealing with all the political headaches (Hiccup, Toothless, Astrid, Cami Embron, etc.; even Stoick had been called in for assistance a couple of times,) were enjoying the respite from the cold we were more than used to at this time of year (Berk typically had two feet of snow, Colorado could be anywhere from 60°F to below zero), taking flights in our free time over the surrounding cities, but eventually one still wishes to return to normality, or what passed for it in our case.

I had been tuning in to the worldwide news however a fair bit, tracking the results of the final clashes between Malin’s remaining forces and our allied countries, and more domestically hoping that someone might have spotted Shen, whom we still believed to be at large and thus the greatest threat. What I ended catching onto instead were unusual reports about the natural world.

Mass migrations of birds had been seen moving away from northern regions, followed by other animals; herds of elk and bison were vacating Yellowstone in greater numbers than the usual winter migrations to adjoining grounds; flights worldwide were being grounded or canceled due to wild fluctuations and meteorological anomalies in the currents of the upper atmosphere. I myself had experienced some of this, running into unusually violent turbulence the few times I had gone up into the higher air columns on my flights. Dragons are experts at reading and riding dangerous winds, and these currents had nearly managed to throw even me from the sky.

The call from my mother therefore sent me and everyone else with me racing home to figure out this new concern. As we entered Berk, I gave Odin an all-clear to allow the portal to the East Coast to finally close after more than a month open, and me, Hiccup, Toothless, Amethyst, Astrid, Camicazi, and Ember all immediately booked it for my house.

Zipeau had already set up several displays on the wall of the kitchen with his homemade projectors by the time we arrived, and maps of the world were floating across the screens.

“Japan was just hit by a hailstorm that stretched across nearly the length of the entire country,” he explained, expanding an image that showed the roiling clouds that were sweeping eastward now over open ocean, thankfully beginning to disintegrate from the cooler currents there but still clearly a powerful storm. “The clouds were breaking through the tropopause nearly continuously along the front,” he continued, “and they’re reporting hailstones as averaging softball sized, many of them larger; there was a record twelve-pound stone that smashed through a Tokyo high-rise. Central France and eastern Australia are currently under intense electrical storms; hundreds of fires have been lit by the lightning.”

“Europe should be having snow right now instead of lightning though, right?” Astrid asked, eyes glued on the projections.

“If past years are anything to go by, yes,” Zipeau confirmed. “Or, at least cold rains from fronts rather than convectional storms. High air currents have been producing charged atmospheric regions like nothing I can find recorded anywhere!”

The garage door opened outside the kitchen door, and a moment later my father burst through, concern also on his expression. “I got your call Denise,” he said. “What’s going on? The truck company is slowing way down thanks to all of the flights and therefore delivery cancellations.”

“Seems the world’s gone crazy again,” my mom replied, “only this time it’s nature. Weather patterns are completely shattered from what they’re supposed to be, and there are storms and turbulence everywhere.”

“And unfortunately, that’s not all there is either,” Zipeau added softly, pressing a couple buttons on his keyboard. One image on the wall shifted, showing surface and deep ocean temperatures and current pathways. The entire Atlantic was still, and cold.

“The iceberg that calved off the Ross Shelf only a month ago swerved north too fast and melted right into the equatorial currents,” he explained. “It threw off the rest of the adjoining currents and drove the temperature down, which destabilized all the wind currents above the ocean. The effect is starting to spread into the Indian and southern Pacific oceans, which is why”-

He was cut off as a low, barely audible rumble permeated through the house, quieting all of us. Underfoot, I detected the slightest of vibrations in tandem. It lasted only for a couple of seconds, but we all knew that was not normal; something similar had occurred a few months before during a minor seismic event with a nearby epicenter.

Almost immediately as well, a pair of alarms began to beep loudly on Zipeau’s displays, both of them in the US.

“Alright, what the heck just happened?” Jake asked snappily, he and Kingsley appearing at the kitchen’s entrance.

“Seismic vibration,” Zipeau replied, expanding one of the regions where the flashing light paired with an alarm was going off. “We appear to have just had an earthquake, and…oh dear Lord.”

The new image was centered on northeastern Wyoming.

“Yellowstone,” my mother said quietly, confirming yet another fear that I had building.

“The park with the hot springs and everything?” Ember asked.

Zipeau nodded. “Magnitude 8.9,” he confirmed, “the towns around the area are not going to be in good condition. Oh, nothing like that has been reported since 1959, so I wonder if…” He trailed off as he brought up a new site on his computer and began scrolling. Hiccup and I both crowded in to look over his shoulder at the numbers flying past; I recognized one of the columns as seismic recordings, and the other…it took me a moment, before I realized they were satellite measurements of the ground.

“There has been some rising of the caldera floor, but nothing really out of the ordinary beyond normal stresses of the area,” Zipeau concluded. “It might have been a fluke earthquake then; perhaps I am more paranoid right now than I should be with all this.”

“Maybe not,” Astrid commented. “We didn’t manage to catch on to this weather stuff for nearly a month.”

“Noted,” the dinosaur agreed. “I’ll keep watch then, as we really can’t deal with earthquakes and volcanos if the weather’s already falling apart. Now the other alert…oh. Oh no.”

He had shifted the map to the West Coast, and satellite images began building a picture of the atmosphere there: a massive storm system building in the California valley, and several portions of it were beginning to rotate rapidly. The problem though, was the direction it was heading.

“It’s running right into Los Angeles,” he said. “Satellite data readings are…it’s a supercell series, and it’s gaining strength very rapidly. It”-

He was cut off when my phone began buzzing in my pocket. My pulse quickened at the noise, and I scrambled to pull it out.

“Hello?”

“Hawken, have you heard the news? There are tornados dropping down all over California!”

It was Sarah, and apparently she had found the same thing we had.

“Yeah,” I said heavily, “we saw the storms on Zipeau’s monitors. I…I’m getting the notion this might have been what Malin was chattering about right before he died.”

“So he…ohhh. Cities are being ripped up though; I know you can’t exactly control the weather, but is there anything you can do? Help evacuate, maybe?”

“Maybe. Look, I’ve got an idea, but I’m going to have to call you back later. Bye.”

I closed the phone and pocketed it, my attention swinging over the displays briefly again. “Gotta go, guys,” I said. “See what else you can pick up while I’m gone.”

I shot out the back door and blazed through the portal toward Berk. There was one person whom I thought might be able to help me out with the situation, and I prayed he was still with his brother in the Great Hall. Pushing the doors open as I landed, I looked around inside frantically.

“Thor?”

“Hawken? I thought you would have been at home,” the blond-haired guardian exclaimed, standing up with surprise from the table he and his siblings had gathered around and turning toward me. “Is there a problem?”

“Think you can spare some time?” I asked urgently. “I need your help, now; a storm out of its season just formed over a major city and a lot of people are going to be in trouble if something isn’t done. I don’t know how much you can affect weather but I thought you might be my best bet.”

Thor nodded, brushing himself off and heading for the front door. “I am sure I can assist in some manner, so let us move before it becomes too late. How close –WHOOAA!!”

I didn’t give him a chance to finish his question, morphing to Lightning Blazer and grabbing his arm, dematerializing the both of us and racing straight back through the portal again. “It’s a ways off,” I explained over the sound, “so we’re going to travel in this manner! By the way, got any experience with tornados?”

* * *

The storms had looked horrible on screen, but the scene in person was brutal when we arrived ten minutes later. Winds buffeted us as we rematerialized, whipping at incredible speeds around a dark, swirling cloud core above our heads. The city of Los Angeles was spread out before us, already marred with broken tracts of buildings still lengthening along the eastern side as a trio of vortices ripped into the metropolis. The wall cloud continued in a slow march toward the city center, and as it did so a fourth funnel appeared, beginning to swirl down almost directly above a cluster of high-rises.

“Disrupt the air flow!” I yelled, wings crackling again. “If we can either cut off the spin of the vortex or somehow redirect it then we might be able to at least prevent further damage!”

“What about the civilians still in the city?” Thor asked, his eyes sweeping the streets below.

“Rescue those that you can, but much as it pains me to say this the tornados are more of a concern!” I replied. “If they aren’t somehow curbed then there are another ten million lives plus at risk!”

The Asgardian nodded and took off, the lightning that crackled in the clouds already beginning to follow him. I dove down myself, wings expanding outward and catching the turbulent air as I positioned myself directly in the path of the newest funnel that was growing.

Typhoomerangs are famous for their ability to whip up miniature windstorms on their own; my hope was that I could use some of the same capacity to reverse the air current beneath the vortex, with any luck stalling it at least long enough for the cloud to either move on, or at least for any people below to evacuate properly (with my strong vision, I had unfortunately spotted at least a couple still within the buildings I was protecting). At first, the violent winds nearly pulled me in, tugging at my wings so fiercely I was afraid they might tear, but one Lightning Blazer pulse and I began to move in the opposite direction, my widened wings dragging with them great volumes of air.

For several moments, it felt like I was fighting a truly losing battle. Then, slowly but surely, the rotating air began to stall, cutting the tornado off from reaching the ground below, and then as I continued to build up speed the reverse circulation began to force it to retreat back up into the cloud above. The column continued to move, and soon I was circling well past the heart of the city, instead now over a sparse suburban area that was already cleared out. Once there I backed off, panting heavily, and watched as the rotating air reasserted itself, the vortex spiraling back out of the wall cloud and streaking toward earth, though now far less likely to kill; despite all the energy I had spent, ending even one tornado was not something I could do that way, but at least I had managed to steer it off the city.

The same could not be said for the rest of the wall cloud that stretched behind me. Lightning flashed and spun in the air as Thor attempted to stall and redirect another of the vortices, while himself staying far enough away to keep from being pulled in by the storm. The remaining two tornados that had been were dissipating, but between Thor and I, another pair began to form, circling each other as the funnels stretched toward the earth.

A scream caught my attention, and I dove down frantically, sweeping over the streets as I searched for the source. Along the nearest tract of damage, I found a middle-aged, black-haired businessman struggling on the ground, his leg trapped under the rubble of a fallen billboard sign. As I landed I looked up, and blanched; the wild twisting of the sister tornados was bringing one swinging straight toward us.

Claws out, I took off and swept by again, breaking apart the remains of the sign and picking the man up. A quick energy pulse healed whatever injuries he might have sustained as we banked away, missing the brunt of the tornado, but he continued screaming bloody murder as if he were about to be flattened.

“Hey, hey! It’s alright!” I called down, trying to catch his attention. He only continued to squirm and scream in my grip. “Okay, SHUT UP!!” I roared instead, loud enough to shock him into clamming up and staring at me.

“Yes, I said it,” I snapped. “Quit screaming like a three-year-old with a tantrum, you’re safe now. I’m going to drop you off beyond the storm’s reach, alright? Do you understand?”

“W-what’s going on here?” he stammered, glancing around still in a half-panic.

“Freak series of supercells,” I said curtly. “A friend and I are trying to redirect the tornados so that people don’t die, but that’s rather hard when said people that we are rescuing are also screaming at us.”

I didn’t give him much more of a chance to reply before landing on one of the hills well beyond the city limits, setting him down. “Stay here until the storm passes completely,” I ordered. “Take cover under the ledges there to be safe, call whatever numbers you can to send in disaster relief if you have a phone with any service still.” Then I turned and took off again, streaking toward the city.

The twin tornados were starting to spawn secondary funnels as they began to merge into each other, tearing a haphazard maze through the city center again. There was no way I was going to be able to cancel everything out with my last trick, so instead I raced ahead and planted myself in front of the now EF-4 sized funnel, demorphing and raising my arms. Beams of energy flowed off my fingers and spread outward above me, the force field arching over the buildings around me and spreading as wide as the tornado itself, nearly a half mile. Already exhausted, the exertion put me to the point where I felt like I might pass out before long, but to my great relief lightning arced down as Thor directed the charges to help strengthen the field, decreasing my own burden and helping me to keep it steady.

Seconds later, I felt the winds of the storm and the debris it had produced slam into the field, the freight train roar of the conjoined funnel echoing around me as it carved its way up and over the dome. As it did so, I began walking down the street, trying to keep pace with it to keep the field underneath, preventing damage once it was past.

The great problem with a multiple vortex funnel, however, is that it is horrifyingly unpredictable. While a single tornado may unexpectedly change course or strengthen without warning, that can be accommodated for; when it splits in multiple directions at once, there is nothing one can do but pray.

As I finally reached the edge of the downtown region and began to pass away from the houses nearby as well, I thought that we would now be in the clear, the wall cloud also having finally fully moved on and rain and wind taking its place over the city. Then the winds shifted, and another daughter vortex snaked out of the side of the main funnel, shooting over my head. My eyes widened as I turned to follow its path, and for a split second, my eyes locked with those of a young office employee stepping out of a distant building, directly where it was about to hit.

“NOOO!! THOR, GET HIM OUT OF THE WAY!!!”

* * *

When Thor and I returned to the house after the storms had finally moved out over the cold ocean and begun to weaken, the atmosphere had grown horribly dower.

Most of the city had managed to be evacuated, and our actions had kept much of the area intact, but in the end, while I was busy with the tornados, Thor had not been fast enough to reach that man. He was one of more than 400 taken by the systems across the state, and more were still missing, and damages were already estimated to be nearly $3 billion. It was the worst tornado outbreak to ever occur in one sweep, our cell alone spawning more than a dozen funnels before it even hit ocean, and I knew now why it had happened as well.

“Malin’s threat before he died was that he was going to bring to life the events of The Day After Tomorrow,” I explained, scanning the projections Zipeau was controlling again. Our kitchen and living room were both now packed with not only the extended family but most of the team from Berk, Stoick, and several of the Asgard family, all listening to what had been pieced together from what I had experienced and what Zipeau had managed to pull from online about the worldwide events.

“The outline of the film was basically a rapid destabilization of the earth’s atmosphere that set up a chain of events eventually producing a series of northern hemispheric storms that had the power to drop the entire globe into a new Ice Age in a matter of days,” I continued, turning to point to the West Coast, Japan, and several other regions on the world map that had been affected already. “The recent storms that wreaked havoc in these areas were just the first wave, side effects of the unstable and heavily charged atmospheric conditions, and worse, the ocean currents are beginning to slow or halt, even bending the wrong direction. Global food chains and supplies could collapse just from that alone, but the final results are going to be the worst part.”

I nodded to Zipeau, and he pressed a button on his computer, causing the center image on the display to zoom into a region along the northern edges of Greenland. Already, massive cloud banks were rapidly forming and coalescing over the ocean, pulled by Coriolis forces into a swirl that resembled that of a hurricane, only nearly triple the size of the largest tropical storms.

“This is our concern,” I said softly. “If this storm forms fully and begins to move southward, the eye alone may be 60 miles across or more, and thanks to the disturbances we’ve already seen in the atmosphere the tropopause has been broken apart; the clouds may be able to grow as high as the lower mesosphere, and with how this is forming instead of pulling air up from the ground it will suck air down through the eye and blow it at the surface. Temperatures up at that level are lethal to all but some microbial organisms and Blizzard Dragons, and the barometric pressure imbalance caused will send a tidal surge at the front of the storm more than 150 feet high anywhere it crosses water.

“And how, exactly, are we supposed to deal with something like this?” Snotlout piped up suddenly, voicing my greatest concern. “Forgive me if I’m just slow and missed something as you all like to joke about, but last I checked, while you and Thor can manipulate the weather a _little_ bit, like you did earlier today, I fail to see how anyone could shut down a hurricane that’s a couple thousand miles wide! I’ve heard your science talk, even an atom bomb couldn’t deal with a summer thunderstorm, let alone this.”

“And he does have a point, loathe as I am to say that,” Astrid agreed, fidgeting uncomfortably as she looked at the displays before turning to me. “Hawken, this is just one storm he’s talking about, thousands of times the size of the tornados you only marginally diverted. If another, heaven forbid, begins to form…I mean, nature itself is one of those things that no one on earth can change in a day; that’s God’s domain. It’s little wonder that whatever nudges Malin made took nearly a month to get all this rolling, and even that’s no small feat.”

“And, that’s not all, either,” Zipeau interjected quietly, with a voice that told us things were only about to get worse. He switched the central display again, and a set of numbers appeared, along with a satellite image of the Greater Yellowstone region. “The Yellowstone Caldera is rising faster now; the lake alone has increased its overall elevation by two feet, and that’s only today. A region near the Norris Geyser Basin just started spouting ash too. The volcano is preparing to erupt; they’ve already begun mass evacuations of the surrounding area.”

“Oh, well isn’t that just peachy!” Camicazi groused, falling dramatically against the kitchen wall. “Bad enough that nobody here has the ability to shut down a super storm because despite what some people have claimed we are _not_ gods, but on top of that I’m fairly certain that you can’t just run up and plug a supervolcano either. How big is the crater on that thing again?”

“Caldera,” Zipeau corrected (and astutely ignored Cami’s deadpan look), “and it’s somewhere around 70 miles across along its length, I think.”

“And volcanos have caused global winters too,” Holly mused. “Won’t the storms feed off the ash and stuff in the air? We’re not looking at a sudden Ice Age; we’re looking at a complete ending of all life on land.”

And there was the final nail in the coffin (pun not intended, but painfully fitting). We didn’t have a means to curb this, in any way.

I glanced at Holly and my parents, feeling a great pain blossom inside me, before looking around at our house, knowing what they would see coming. The best option we had, and it was a hard one even with all the improvements we’d made: gather everyone that we knew and move to Berk and the surrounding areas. Settling in would be very tough for anyone not halfway used to living there already, but it was far better than the other option: a slow, freezing death.

“There might be one other possibility.”

We all slowly turned to look over at Feren, who had been lying near the back of the kitchen, listening passively the whole time. At our notice, the Macawnivore stood up and stepped forward, glancing between each of us.

“If he set both of them off then Malin intended these forces to combine, and worsen the effects that one or the other might have alone,” he said. “What if we pitted them against each other instead though? Heat and cold, drain one into the other and both systems would fall apart; the volcano wouldn’t have the energy to go off and fill the atmosphere with gases and ash, and the storm would destabilize and fall apart, letting the rest of the atmosphere and currents start to come around to normal again. It might just be possible to curb this.”

“But there’s no one who can just pick up a volcano and move it,” Stoick pointed out. “Some of us might be strong, but not that strong.”

“We don’t have to,” Feren countered. “The energy of the volcano just needs to be drained out and directed into the storm. That is possible, if difficult at best.” He sighed, and then slowly his gaze turned to me with great concern. “The only issue I have with even trying this is what might happen to those involved, however.”

It took all of two seconds for everyone present to figure out what he meant. Thor could control weather slightly, Loki could manipulate objects and general matter telekinetically, and several friends and family there could convert energy of one form or other.

But, there was only one person who had a little of each to work with, and only one with any chance of channeling that much raw power at once: me.

“No, wait, Hawken you can’t,” Hiccup exclaimed, shaking his head wildly. “When you set off the bomb in New York, that knocked you out, in the middle of the battlefield, and you stayed that way for two days! This is another level entirely, hundreds of times that amount of energy at least, and if you can’t handle it then it’s not just you falling into the ocean, it’s you falling right into the Yellowstone volcano, or even…”

He didn’t bother, or couldn’t manage to finish that thought. They all knew the physical strain I experienced when holding onto or converting mass amounts of energy, as I’d done it several times. It could very well be more than just me being knocked unconscious; it could end up a self-induced vaporization event.

I sighed, already knowing I only had one choice. “I know, Hiccup, but…I have to ask, what is one life, to billions? What is my worth, compared to having every one of you still around? I have to at least try, or I could never forgive myself for condemning everyone on this earth, and forcing all of you away from here permanently. I’ve already taken thousands of lives; I wouldn’t survive passing that mark willingly.”

The silence that followed was filled with a palpable tension. From across the room, I could feel my direct family trying, and nearly failing, to pin themselves in place and keep from grabbing hold of me to never let go. They all knew it was true, but no one wanted to accept it.

“Fine,” Jake piped up finally, his head rising up above everyone else’s as he fixed me with a hard, uncompromising glare that only a reptile could ever manage. “But wherever you’re going, at least a few of us are tagging along with. If things do go wrong, at least someone will be there to pull yer sorry ass out of danger before ye kill yourself.”


	36. Fire and Fury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song at the start of this chapter was the first thing I heard as I walked out of the theater from seeing HTTYD 2.

_I will burn, I will burn for you!_

_With fire and fury, fire and fury!_

_My heart hurts, my heart hurts for you!_

_Your love burns within me,_

_With fire and fury, whoooaaa!_

_-Skillet, Fire and Fury_

It was decided that the two Night Furies, Hiccup, Jake, Kingsley, and Embron would accompany me in my attempt; that we had been able to convince the rest to stay behind was little short of a miracle.

Zipeau had given Hiccup a long-range radio, since the telephone towers in the area had been either knocked down by the earthquake or were being interfered with by the odd weather anomalies and they would do us no good, and once it was confirmed it worked we set off. Embron set the pace, being the slowest among us, but even then in our hurried state it took little more than two hours to reach the park. I had seen it before in the splendor of a summer vacation when it was full of life, the thermal attractions an amazing sight that cannot be appreciated any way other than in person and the spread of wildlife was unmatched in North America.

Now, half the normally visible structures in the park were dead silent, and the other half running at well above a normal rate thanks to the rising magma and subsequent heat pouring through the ground. To the west of Yellowstone Lake, a single small plume of ash spouted almost lazily, a poor first sign of the full power that the earth was about to let loose.

We glided in and landed haphazardly beyond the edge of the caldera itself, snow whipping around us from the winds funneling to the northeast and mixing with ash beyond. Immediately, I turned to the others, grimly serious expression chiseled on.

“Alright look, I know what my parents said, and what you guys want,” I began, my voice carrying a tone hardening the fact that I would hear no arguments, “but unless everything is clear and you can get in to me without risk of injuring yourselves, nobody, and I mean NOBODY comes in after me, got it?”

“Wait, wait, wait, now hold on,” Hiccup immediately went to protest, ignoring both looks and tones, “you’re trying to tell us that if things go south here and the volcano keeps blowing up, we’re just supposed to leave you here if you can’t get out on your own? Maybe it’s just me, but that plan is not going to go over with me, sorry.”

<Agreed,> Toothless growled, nodding firmly.

“And I’d rather keep from getting more people killed here than is necessary,” I shot back. “We know the risks I face here, and we know I’m the only one who’s capable of making it happen, so I’m the only one who’s going to be putting my neck on the block, got it? I know that I may not…I may not survive, but,” I reached forward as I spoke, expression softening as I placed one hand on Hiccup’s shoulder, and the other on to Amethyst’s nose, “the last thing that I want is to risk all of you as well. If you can at least make it home, then take everyone you can with you back to Berk. If that happens, then at least I can go into this with a clear conscience.

“But, if you all try to go against my order here and come after me…” I continued, pausing to look at each of them with an expression to match my conflicted heart, “that’s why I originally wanted to come alone, because then I could have ensured that no one else I knew was going to get hurt. I know we’re all a bit hard-headed here, which is why I relented and let you come with me, but I can’t live with you dying because you were here for me.”

“And we couldn’t live with ourselves if we let you go alone without at least trying to be there to back you up,” Kingsley shot back from where he and Jake were both wrapped around Embron’s spines; if snakes could cry, he would have been tearing up badly, and it almost made me start sobbing to look over to him. “Can I request that we make a compromise then? If there’s at least a reasonable means of us getting you out safely, we can take it. We’ve been in a war, and we have a pyrokinetic Nightmare with us, after all.”

I sighed; so much for no arguments. “Alright, I will relent. But, only if chances are a lot higher that you will make it out than not.” I turned to look out over the park again, watching the landscape and tracking the quakes and vibrations underfoot. “In any case, any minute now our lives are never going to be the same one way or the other.”

* * *

It was in fact only fifteen minutes later, when first I got word from Zipeau via the radio of happenings elsewhere: the Arctic super storm had begun sweeping south, the edges already brushing over Newfoundland and the upper states and bringing tidal surges to the cities on the coast as well as deadly winds. Thirty seconds later, the ground underneath our feet heaved violently, nearly throwing us off our feet, and immediately we all went on alert.

“I think it’s time; I’m heading up, you guys stay here and do not follow me, understood?” I ordered. They nodded, reluctantly, and I spread a pair of Night Fury wings, taking off over the park.

The lake heaved and churned as the ground around and underneath it rippled and cracked from the titanic force surging upward. Bubbles erupted across the surface as the water superheated at the bottom and rose up alongside volcanic gases escaping through the rapidly expanding volcanic vents that lined the deepest points of the lake bed. But as of yet, still nothing more severe than the original small plume had appeared. That, however, soon tapered off without warning as if it had simply been shut off.

Then, a resounding crack that I felt like a gunshot to my side echoed through the sky, following a great supersonic shockwave, and a chasm opened up straight through the western end of Yellowstone Lake. I swerved after regaining my balance and centered myself directly over it, erecting a precautionary field, and braced myself. Below me, the earth vanished from sight.

The sky filled at once with both pitch black and fiery red, deafening from the sound of the volcano itself and the thunder from the static lightning discharging within the plume; the force almost immediately sent me rocketing upward as ash and superheated rocks flew up around me, battering the force field violently. A moment later I gained my bearings again, locking into the heat, static, and physical energy that poured from the ground so I could begin converting and redirecting it.

Instantaneously, my body began to feel like it was ripping apart as the power surged through every individual cell within me, a blinding beam revealing itself as searing light when it arced up and away to what I hoped was the northeast, pouring into the storm and breaking it apart. Despite my precautions, the surge of energy was making me and the air within my field heat up, climbing slowly but steadily to the point where it would eventually override even the tolerance the most heat-loving dragons possessed. Pulse after pulse rocketed up and out, each one threatening to knock my breath from my lungs.

Then, the situation only devolved from there. I was on the verge of physical pain trying to direct what was pouring out of the one vent, the very air now glowing from pure energy fields whipping frenziedly around me, but I was barely putting even a dent into the great plume that still rose around me. In a glimpse beyond the wall of fire and ash, I saw then a second break through beyond in the park, just as powerful as the first. In order to actually shut down the volcano, let alone take out the storm at the same time, a conversion of a far, far larger magnitude was needed.

My eyes widened in a sudden, despairing realization: my effect was slight, despite all that I was doing, and my endeavor would indeed fail in the end. The world, for all our efforts, was yet about to go dark.

Unless…

…unless another input could be made that could hold this kind of power. I had long held my theory that at least part of my ability relied on connections to dark matter and energy; I knew that the amount of power it took for me to morph, as well as actually convert matter and energy between forms, far exceeded any of the power that I produced as a result. If everything that went into my gift could be channeled to this, then maybe, just maybe…this could still happen. But, there was a very, very large probability that I could not survive the attempt.

Knowing the decision that had to be made, I closed my eyes, focusing hard on a link that had long been present but never expanded upon within me. The Descendants that had become a part of our family had all noticed that they knew, to some extent, where the others were and how they were doing, something they attributed simply to an odd sixth sense, but on rare occasions it could be a little more: a direct connection to each other when close enough.

It was this I opened, gathering my thoughts to send one last message.

_Tell the others I said I love you,_ I said, feeling in return the sudden reactions of the Descendants, Amethyst and the other three closest most strongly. _Take care of each other, be there for each other, for you are what matters. Goodbye._

Zipeau figured out the connection first and immediately tried to break through back to me, and I could feel him straining his mind to do so, but I had already cut the link. Now, I turned my gaze skyward, an entirely new sensation beginning to course over me as I turned my focus both inward and to a place I couldn’t see at the same time as I spoke.

“Yahweh, o Lord, please hear me now: you gave me these abilities, this gift, to help and protect, and I’ve tried to do so for years now, but holding on to it won’t help any more. So now, please, let me give it back so that I can protect my family, and let the world live,” I pleaded, tears now falling free from my eyes and vaporizing in the heat around me. The force field was beginning to break as I reached my actual physical limits, and I could feel a burning sensation begin to run through me as well as the heat of the volcano itself radiated up, pieces of rock and ash biting at my skin as they began to break through.

“I’m letting go; Yeshua, please help me finish this. As you did, trade my life for everyone I care for.”

The strain was catching up; I could feel the power rushing through me like it was the fire of the earth itself, lightning and thunder racing into me as the static built into the plume.

Then, for a moment, I thought I felt the breaching of my limits. A searing, indescribable agony bloomed somewhere within me. It took a moment for me to realize where it had originated, upon my arm just below the wrist, moments before it raced through the rest of me, taking my mind and body at once in a great tidal surge of torment. I’m sure I screamed myself hoarse, but over the roar of the volcano and the intensity of the pain I did not hear it.

I felt my wings and tail suddenly vanish from me, and I was left floating in place simply from the sheer intensity around me of all the forces battling in one great calamity. The light of the energy beam that had been traveling away suddenly condensed inward, before rippling out in a great wave, so bright that for a split second I was seeing backward through my own head.

I don’t know how long it lasted, but the great shockwave of power swept outward, engulfing everything around me. As it spread away and died back so too did all feeling shut off; I felt no pain, no pressure, no heat, nothing.

Light faded fully to complete darkness like I had never experienced, and I felt for a moment as if something had grabbed hold of me, pulling me away from the world to an entirely new dimension. I wasn’t worried though; there wasn’t anything left to be worried about, right?

Then…


	37. One for Many

_The greatest sacrifice_

_Is the most painful vice_

_The servant’s soul_

_For the thousand-fold_

_The mourners cry_

_When the willing die_

_Yet the fallen give_

_So their loved will live_

_/_

_“That was the day the world seemed about to end, and when all was done, at least ours felt like it did with what passed afterward. I’ve known many close friends now over the years, felt like I would lose one or another several times in the past, but this was new, and so much worse, because we were all feeling this loss equally and there was no one left to help pick us back up.”_

_~Hiccup_

Their eyes had been locked on the beam of light that had been pulsing out of the black cloud roiling in front of them, and then on the second great fountain of ash that tore through the sky beyond it shortly after. When the ground had opened, they had nearly been thrown off their feet by the great shockwave that ripped outward, and had been lucky to not have to move to avoid the pyroclastic flow that surged from the caldera, sweeping over the earth in a deadly blanket. Looks turned upward again as the beam flickered for a moment, but something drew their gaze away about two minutes after the volcano began to erupt, a faint premonition. As they did, Hiccup and Toothless saw the others suddenly jerk back in shock, almost like something had physically hit them.

“Wha-are you okay? What’s happening?” Hiccup asked anxiously.

<He…he said goodbye,> Amethyst whispered, eyes wide in a blank, dead stare. <He has a link and he…oh God, it’s gone!> She whirled around, staring at Hiccup now in unfiltered panic. <We need to go; we need to get him out of-!>

She didn’t get to finish as the sky suddenly exploded, something within the violent ash plume searing through the darkness like it didn’t exist. Hiccup closed his eyes instinctively and turned away alongside the others, but even then, the intensity was beyond anything he’d ever experienced; he was seeing _through_ his eyelids and picking out individual details on the mountains twenty miles away as the light wave ripped past them, roiling onward to the horizon in all directions.

Several days later, they would come to find that most of the globe had seen the energy aurora as it rippled through the sky, setting the turbulent atmosphere straight as it passed little by little, like a great bedsheet being smoothed out. But right then, a different concern filled each and every one of them as the light finally died away and they were able to turn their attention back toward the great plume from the volcano.

The ash clouds from the two great plumes had half-vaporized in the event, and what was left was no longer rising into the sky but falling to the ground in a gentle curtain, leaving the air to slowly clear, and reveal what was left. Toothless spotted him first, the small, frail figure beginning to drop from the sky in the midst of the cloud.

<There he is!> he roared, opening his wings to take off as Hiccup braced himself, but Amethyst beat him to it, rocketing off the ground and surging toward her half-brother, buffeting the others in the backwash of her wings.

<HAWKEN!> she roared, pumping her wings as fast as she could. Hawken was falling rapidly, nearing the ground at an alarming rate. The female Night Fury dove when she realized just how quickly he was dropping, stretching out her paws as far as she could ahead of her; either way, she knew, this was not going to be an okay landing.

Twenty feet above the ground, Amethyst finally caught hold of Hawken’s limp arm. She yanked him hard into her grasp and tightly coiled her head, wings, and tail around him as she too plummeted, letting gravity take over as it inevitably would. She felt herself skip over what was left of the boiling water in the lake as it rushed to fill the great smoking chasm left behind, and slam hard into the fuming, rocky shore, rolling and bouncing as she dug a trench through the shattered ground, finally slowing only when she rolled into the now-flattened tree line, the edges of her wings and tail splaying limply out over shards of stone and splintered trees. No longer moving, the dragon let out a heavy groan from the injuries that now made themselves known from the impact, but she refused to let go of the grip she had on her brother.

“Amethyst! Oh my God, Amethyst are you okay?” Hiccup yelled as he and Toothless came skidding in over the gravel and broken branches left in her wake. The rider leapt from his dragon’s back before they’d come to a full stop, tripping over a stray rock and almost flying face-first into the ground but ignoring his blunder in favor of stumbling forward as he rushed to Amethyst’s side, Toothless right next to him.

“Oh geez, you’ve got cuts all over you,” he exclaimed, gingerly placing a hand on her side. “Please tell me nothing’s broken-!”

“Check…urgh…Hawken,” Amethyst wheezed, carefully unwrapping her wings to show the young man she held there. Hiccup nodded, glancing behind him as Embron and the two snakes caught up to them, before kneeling down and looking over Hawken, taking him carefully from Amethyst’s paws and supporting his head.

Hawken was in a state none of them had ever seen him, also covered in a myriad of cuts and bruises like Amethyst was from the hundreds of rocks and splinters that had assaulted him in the air, the fabric portions of his coat and clothes battered and ripped wherever Myscale didn’t hold them together. But, something else scared Hiccup far more: Hawken was freezing cold to the touch, a worrying sign after being in the middle of a volcanic eruption (and he knew that Hawken had never liked being cold), and he was striped and scarred with burns across his hands and face. They weren’t serious in their own right, but Hiccup had never known a time where Hawken had ever turned off the common flame resistance nearly all dragons shared. Something very, very drastic had occurred up there if he had done so now.

“This isn’t good,” he muttered gravely.

<What? What’s not good?> Toothless queried, looking worriedly over Hiccup’s shoulder. <Is he…oh, Yah preserve us, he’s got burns.>

“He’s burned, yes, but he’s also freezing cold, and his heartbeat’s really shallow,” Hiccup replied, standing up carefully. “Toothless, bend down; we need to get him to a hospital, now!”

Toothless nodded, lowering his wings and lying flat on the ground as Hiccup lifted Hawken onto his back.

“Jake! Kingsley! Help me keep him in place!” Hiccup ordered. “We can’t waste any time at all here!” The two snakes nodded and unwrapped themselves from Embron’s spines, racing over to Toothless.

<W-wait,> Amethyst groaned, slowly rolling over. <I can…I can help-owww!>

She yelped and collapsed again, nursing her back-right leg and her left wing. Embron stepped in immediately, lowering his snout to scan the Night Fury and frowning as he did so.

<Sprained leg, maybe worse, and I’m guessing a fractured radial wing bone,> he said. <Amethyst, you’re not flying anywhere. Hiccup, Toothless, go; get Hawken to a hospital now!>

Jake and Kingsley were busy wrapping themselves tight around both Hawken and Toothless, Kingsley around Hawken’s chest and arms and Jake over his legs, so Hiccup nodded, climbing into the saddle in front of their injured brother.

“Alright, catch up when you can Embron,” he said. “No good having you go down either, got it?” Then, he looked down and nodded to Toothless. “We’re secure bud; let’s go!” Toothless nodded back, and took to the sky, soaring south.

Embron turned his gaze downward then to Amethyst. <Shrink down a bit, that way I can safely carry you,> he ordered.

Amethyst shook her head again, and tried a second time to stand up. <No, I can do it I’m sure,> she stated adamantly. <Toothless has had more accidents->

<Toothless is also leagues more experienced than you are and doesn’t barge through stone and volcano fumes in a blind rush, nor does he attempt flying with broken wings,> Embron bit back, towering up over her. <I know you want to go and help; believe me, I do too, considering Hawken is as close to me as he is you, but it’s not going to do any good if you strain that wing any further, or any of the other injuries I can see either and end up killing yourself on the way back. Now shrink down as I told you so we can both get back, get Freyja to heal you and hopefully Hawken if she hasn’t by the time we get there before things deteriorate any further.>

Amethyst scowled, before allowing herself to decrease in size, wincing as the act dragged her wings across the jagged ground, upsetting the break. Embron nodded, before lifting off the ground and carefully grabbing her around the middle with his talons.

<Now hold still,> he said more softly. <We’re getting out of here. And pray, that things do not get any worse before we return.>

* * *

Toothless could have sworn that the air itself around him was breaking at the speed he was moving. He’d exceeded the sound barrier before and was no stranger to the sonic waves that followed, though usually it occurred in dives, and then only in short bursts. Now though, the adrenaline fueling his system from the thought of losing his other “adopted” brother kept him and his passengers at and occasionally above that great speed for several minutes at a time during his hastened travel homeward.

Hiccup was flattened against the saddle, knowing that if he gave the wind screaming around him any purchase he would rip before any part of his suit would, and the two snakes behind him held a similarly low profile as they grabbed on to the dragon they rode with all their strength to keep themselves and Hawken from falling off in the wind. Toothless would never admit it, but they managed to bruise him heavily in their exertions. None of them even considered the notion of slowing down at all however, knowing that time was of the essence at the moment.

As they approached the outskirts of Hawken’s home town and Toothless began to slow down so that he wouldn’t crash upon landing, Hiccup finally remembered the radio in his pocket. While it had gone off several times in the desperate attempts of the Descendants back home and those around them to make contact after they felt Hawken’s relay, it had gone unnoticed in their great hurry. Whipping it out, Hiccup turned it on.

“Zipeau! This is urgent: get Freyja Asgard to the medical center as fast as you possibly can! Hawken’s really beat up and it doesn’t look good at all!”

“You finally answer!” a semi-hysterical response came back. “What happened up there?! We’ve been trying to get through for nearly an hour!”

“He did something that managed to shut down the volcano, the whole thing, and maybe the storm as well, but now he’s unconscious, freezing cold, and covered in cuts and first-degree burns, maybe worse in some places!”

“Oh Lord please help us. We’re going now, we’ll meet you there!”

Toothless was already angling himself down toward the building, banking swiftly and landing carefully in front of the emergency entrance. As the doors swept open, he did not wait for Hiccup to get off before bounding through.

“Get a doctor down here now!” the dragon barked, shocking the attendant at the desk nearby. “My brother is in critical condition!”

The commotion naturally attracted several nurses nearby immediately, and they ran up to him save for one who disappeared for a minute before returning with a gurney, pulling it up alongside Toothless.

“Can you tell us his name, what happened?” another asked gently, looking at Hiccup as they picked Hawken up and either tried to ignore or simply not caring about Kingsley and Jake as they unwrapped themselves to let the attendants take the unconscious young man.

“His name is Hawken, guy who turns into the dragons,” Hiccup said hurriedly, forcing himself to avoid sarcastic comments; surely, they could have put two and two together what with the Night Fury and sapient snakes present? “I don’t know what exactly happened, but he just averted a global disaster doing whatever it was and now he’s covered in burns, cold, and completely unresponsive. He’s got a really weak pulse, barely breathing…”

Hiccup rushed right alongside them as they began wheeling Hawken through the building. “And, this is really serious, because since he’s got dragon abilities burns should be nearly impossible, and he should never feel that cold!” He turned his head for a moment as they began to round a corner. “Kingsley! Wait here for the others and show them where to go when they get here!”

The cobra nodded simply if with clear conflict over the order, turning and waiting with a stoic expression near the doors as the rest followed the gurney deeper into the hospital.

“Get a monitor ready; patient is suffering severe physical trauma, unresponsive,” the head nurse ordered as they pushed into the emergency room. “I want readings on him now and IV’s ready; check his temperature and heart rate and get a respirator ready!”

Several machines were wheeled in immediately if they weren’t already present, forcing Toothless to back up to give them space as patches and IV catheters came out. Several doctors now present, the room continued to grow more crowded and frantic

“Body temperature dropping, below 82°F,” one of the nurses called out. “He’s going into critical hypothermic shock; we need to get his core warmed up now!” He skirted around to the head of the gurney, pulling tubes along with him. “Hook up the IVs now, and check his heart rate!”

Several minutes of rushing around ensued following this, with Hiccup, Toothless, and Jake all watching from nearby with growing worry and listening to the painfully slow, but still rhythmic sound of Hawken’s heart monitor tracing his pulse. Worse still, they could do nothing but stand by helplessly with their brother’s life in someone else’s hands. Then, Holly and Nara showed up, bursting through the doors with Astrid, Thorn, and the two big cats in tow.

“Please tell me he’s okay!” Holly pleaded, rushing toward the room only to be slowed by the others who recognized the seriousness of the situation, and that Holly posed a considerable risk of getting in the way and risking her brother if she ran any further.

“Slow down Holly, he’s still alive,” Hiccup assured, grabbing her by the shoulders. “He’s…he’s not in a good way, but he’s alive, and until Freyja gets here there’s not much that we can do, so we need to stay out of the doctors’ ways, okay?”

The teen clearly did not approve of this though, and Astrid inched closer just in case the teen went off (few things were scarier than Holly in a bad mood or a panic, other than her brother when he lost his temper), but she reluctantly nodded acquiescence, tears starting to fall already from worry as she backed away and fell against Feren, who curled around her protectively.

“I really hope Freyja gets here soon,” Hiccup muttered, standing next to Astrid. “I know Zipeau left immediately to go find her, probably with Twintail in tow for transportation, but he’s taking a while already.”

The blonde put her arms around him. “I’m…I’m sure that everything will be okay,” she tried to reassure, though the expression on her face betrayed her true thoughts on the matter. Her words were working as much to assure herself as Hiccup. “Hawken’s managed to pull through everything else that’s been leveled at him, so why would this be any different?”

“Because this time he did something that shut down the entire supervolcano within seconds,” Hiccup replied wearily, “and the air cleared for as far as I could see, so I think that whatever it was set everything else straight too. That much power…Astrid, we found him freezing cold and covered with burns after Amethyst caught him falling from the sky. You know how hard it is to burn a dragon, and Hawken’s never turned that ability off before, even when he was unconscious during that explosion in New York. You can’t tell me that something’s not very wrong, very different here.”

A high-pitched beeping noise suddenly drew everyone’s attention to the emergency room again, those who had looked away, as the nurses and doctors began entering another state of rushed panic. Having been in hospitals before, and having seen plenty of movies with scenes featuring dying patients, Hiccup and Astrid knew what that sound was, and it chilled them to the bone.

“His heartbeat’s turning erratic!” one of the nurses shouted. “Get the defibrillator ready, it’s stopping quick! Temperature up, now!”

“Oh, God please no,” Hiccup whispered, eyes widening, before he immediately turned to grab onto Holly, who’d leapt up to run to her brother. “Holly, Holly no! We can’t -ow!”

The teen had landed a hard punch to Hiccup’s stomach in her growing panic, making him double over and instinctively let go of her. She immediately ran again, right into Astrid who was better able to pin the chaotic girl’s swinging arms.

“Let me go! Hawken! Let go of me!!” Holly screamed, eyes frantically flittering around the room.

“I can’t, Holly!” Astrid yelled back, forcing the teen to look at her. “We all want to run to him right now, okay, but it will only make things worse, and I know we don’t want to lose him alright? None of us would be alright if that happened, but we can’t do anything but wait, so wait with me!”

The words slowly got through to Holly, her thrashing slowing, but that didn’t stop her entirely from trying to move forward, tears streaming down her face as she watched the doctors rush around Hawken, desperately trying to halt his deteriorating condition. Hiccup, now recovered from Holly’s hit, stood up and joined Astrid in holding Holly tight, trying to console her as much as themselves.

But both Astrid and Hiccup almost lost their own self-control though, stopped only by Feren and Sasha planting themselves in front of them, when the beeping sound of the heart monitor suddenly flatlined.

“No heartbeat!” one of the doctors exclaimed. “Remove his shirt, charge the defibrillator and begin resuscitation now!”

“No, no, come on Hawken fight this!” both Hiccup and Toothless whispered in unison, eyes widening as they watched the doctors tear away what was left of Hawken’s shirt as they grabbed the paddles of the machine that now held the young man’s remaining chances at life. “You can’t leave, not now, not after all this!”

“Everyone ready,” the doctor with the paddles called out. “3…2…1…clear!”

The ‘THUMP!’ of the defibrillator made everyone in the room wince, watching Hawken’s body jerk violently off the table before coming to rest again, unmoving. They held their breath, praying fervently.

“No pulse! Keep pumping!” the doctor ordered, holding up the defibrillator pads and rubbing them together again. “3…2…1…clear!”

THUMP!

Silence.

“No pulse. Keep pumping!”

“No, no, NO!!” Hiccup and Holly now yelled, the latter renewing her fight to get to Hawken, and the former thoroughly blocked and held back by Feren and Jake. “No! We can’t lose him! Hawken!!”

“3…2…1…clear!”

THUMP!

“No pulse!”

“HAWKEN!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger...


	38. Winter's Will

_The broken soul makes footsteps that one can barely hear_

_In arctic drifts of loss they can’t explain_

_Their path, wandering in wilderness_

_The imprints in the snow the only sign_

_That life had ever passed_

_Crystal hearts are fragile_

_At but a bare caress they crack_

_Frozen shards cannot be mended_

_As once in whole they were_

_Time and God alone may turn_

_The will of a love in winter’s hands_

_/_

_“If there is another pain like that, I can’t imagine it. We could not breathe, we could not think, only stand there rooted frozen as a part of our lives was ripped away, and a piece of us died inside. Holly was screaming, Hiccup and I lost our voices, Astrid was crying as she held Holly still, and the Descendants…all of the above. I’ve heard people say you don’t know how much you care for someone until you think you’ve lost them, and…well, they’re right. For that moment, the world could have come crashing down as it had been ready to only hours before, and we would have never noticed.”_

_~Toothless_

The waiting room was graveyard silent, filled with myriad forms that stood or sat with barely the energy to blink. Some of them had been there for the entire ordeal, others showed up later like Hawken’s parents had (in their own rush, upon the dragons still around that hadn’t already had passengers to carry), but they all felt the same. They were all dried out of tears, all choked out of emotion, and barely able to carry solace for one another with how worn they had become.

Hawken had died.

For nearly ten minutes, he had died, laid out on a table with no breath, no heartbeat, nothing that claimed he was still in the world of the living. Freyja had shown up with Ember, Orha, Twintail, Teshra, Zipeau, Sam, Denise, and Stoick and Valka with their dragons all in tow, just as the doctors were readying to proclaim him lost, and even after nearly completely exhausting herself with the effort she had given, Hawken had barely regained a pulse that was detectable, breathing only with the help of a respirator, and he remained trapped within a deep coma, barely on the edge of existence. He remained, too, with his burns, cuts, and bruises displayed for all to see.

A good three dozen people did not get a sliver of sleep the night that followed, sick with worry over the young man who had ended up becoming a link between two very different, and yet nearly identical worlds.

Amethyst was at least healed easily enough, when she and Embron arrived from up north, despite her barely even being able to stay in place for the time necessary to set her broken bones and mend them under Freyja’s touch before bounding over and planting herself resolutely against Hawken’s bed. It had taken a shot of dragon nip and three dragons to convince her to leave so the doctors could proceed as they needed.

Indeed, the new year was starting off with a very dark, somber mood, matching the plummeting temperatures that had returned to the state outside, a record-setting freeze sweeping in as part of the world’s attempt to reset its natural forces. The hospital waiting room near where Hawken was being kept was packed full of colorful characters that at any other time would have drawn huge crowds just to gawk, especially when the rest of the Berkian post-teens had shown up throughout the evening. Now, however, it was only silent, all of them remaining unbothered by the hospital staff and pensive as they ticked off the minutes that passed, waiting still for a more official prognosis.

Valka stood next to Denise, holding her shoulders as they both worried as only mothers could; both of them knew they shared cares for everyone who was now around them in the hospital, despite having come from separate earths, and took small comforts in each other. Similarly, Sam and Stoick stood a short way off to the side of the room, watching everyone and waiting as their means to stave off breakdowns of their own. Touchy-feely they were not, but gained comforts in protecting their kin.

“He’s developed quite the extended family these past few years, hasn’t he?” Sam eventually mused quietly. “A rather…unorthodox one, but everyone here holds him as a brother, son, or close friend, don’t they?”

Stoick chuckled softly, as if hoping not to break the delicate ambience that settled around them, and laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Oh aye,” he agreed. “When word spread through the village when Zipeau came for Freyja of what had happened, it was all I could do to get Spitelout and Gobber to keep everyone at home rather than swarm here te show their support as we left. Only a few years…and such a rocky first meetin’.”

The chief gave a ragged sigh. “Yes, I remember that day still like it was yesterday, skinny teen that looked like he could be Hiccup’s brother showed up out of nowhere, dragged us into a chaos not even the twins could compete with…anyway. Everything he’s done fer us, the village will break for a week now even if we don’t lose him. And Hiccup and Toothless…I don’t think there’s anyone closer to each other in that way than those two, but the bond they both share with Hawken is somethin’ else too. They’re brothers, no other way to say it, and…I don’t know what will happen to them either if Hawken doesn’t make it after all this.”

Stoick’s gaze turned then over to another teen sitting curled up against Astrid, the two of them flanked on both sides by their dragons and the big cats. “And,” he began again, “I pray for the sake of Holly alone we don’t have that happen; she would never be the same. Things have to come back around.”

“At least she’s got all this support for her,” Sam noted though. “Holly will have someone to hold on to.”

The door to the large room opened then, and everyone tensed up as a man in a haggard looking white lab coat walked in, carrying a clipboard in his hand and a troubled expression on his face.

“I’m assuming you will all want to hear the news,” he said, glancing at the board before looking around the room. At the unanimous nods, he sighed. “Hawken…is still not doing well, and he’s on the brink, much as he was several hours ago. His body temperature is still low, though not at lethal levels anymore, and the wounds he sustained are sapping at whatever strength he might have left.” He looked over to Freyja, who sat now with her two sons Thor and Loki in chairs near Hiccup. “But, whatever you did seems to have helped; his heart rate is low, but stable, and his body temperature is rising if slowly.”

He sighed. “Hawken is basically suffering both from extreme exhaustion throughout his body and severe shock trauma. He will be in a coma, possibly for several weeks or more, but for now he still has a chance to survive. He will need to remain undisturbed for some time to ensure nothing else shocks his system, as even the smallest shake might set him off again, but if left still he could come around.”

Giving a sympathetic nod, the doctor then stepped out, leaving everyone behind to let out a collective sigh of relief, several of them breaking into tears for a second time (and a few trying to hide it; Snotlout would attempt, and fail, to hold onto his lint-in-the-eye claim for months).

Hiccup walked over to Holly and Astrid, setting down in front of them, before the trio leaned forward into a hug.

“He’s going to come around,” Hiccup breathed. “We’re going to get him back. One way or another, we’ll get him back.” Then he laughed quietly, drawing the other two into relieved giggles as well, before the lighter mood began to sweep contagiously through the room until half-crying laughter was the only thing that could be heard.

* * *

“Delta’s being enlisted for further diplomatic relations alongside Embron,” Feren reported as he walked into the oversized hospital room several days later, addressing Sam, Denise, Hiccup, and the Two Night Furies who were encircling Hawken’s bed either in chairs or simply wrapped around the frame on the floor; the medical staff had finally permitted them to be in the same room again. Glancing at Amethyst as he came in, Feren also took a moment to wonder whether or not she’d even left Hawken’s bedside at all since the announcement, but decided not to bring it up just yet; he still had to finish his first note.

“Those two will probably be hard to reach for a few days, but the other raptors have joined the snakes and some of the teens in guarding the building here,” he continued. “Also, Hiccup, I hate to draw you away but Gobber has repeatedly requested your help at the forge today. Sends his apologies and everyone is sympathetic -they all want to be here too- but he and Ember aren’t quite covering the repairs needed from both the battle and that last storm that came through.”

Hiccup sighed, before glancing over at Toothless. “Mind helping me get there bud?” he asked reluctantly. Toothless, in response, glanced concernedly over at Amethyst.

“I’ll be fine, Mr. Clingy,” she quipped, though her irritated tone was betrayed by the smirk on her face. “Go help Hiccup.”

Toothless snorted, smiling in return, before getting up and walking out of the room with his rider. Both Hiccup and Feren noticed the glances the two Night Furies were sharing too as Toothless left, and the Macawnivore hummed in amusement before turning his gaze to the female.

“And two questions for you, sister,” he started lowly. “One: have you left at all in the past few days?”

At the guilty look the dragon wore, his question was more than answered. “As I thought. It doesn’t do Hawken any good to starve yourself waiting for him to get better, you know, and he will reprimand you if he wakes to find out you’re half the dragon you were. You need to get something to eat today; at least go with Sam and Denise when they head home this evening at minimum.” At Amethyst’s worried glance toward the bed, the cat sighed. “I will be here, and there’s everyone who’s taken to guarding the hospital downstairs, so I promise that nothing is going to happen to him, alright?”

“Alright, fine, I’ll go,” Amethyst finally agreed with reluctance, grumbling unintelligibly as she lifted herself off the ground.

Feren nodded satisfactorily, before a more probing, knowing smirk replaced the pleased expression he wore. “And, my second question: how long is it going to be before you quit getting embarrassed about having affections for Toothless?”

“Oh, not you too!” the Night Fury whined, drawing laughter from everyone else in the room as she huffed in dismay.

* * *

The blinding snow whipped across the city, blanketing it slowly in a dreary white cover all too familiar with the residents of the area; weather was unpredictable in the region at all times of the year, and winter blizzards were par for the course.

Shen found the ambience rather endearing, oddly enough. The frozen curtain that hung from the clouds matched his color, the empty streets made by citizens avoiding the weather and the late hour were welcoming to his displeasured soul, and the temperatures that were dropping to nearly zero degrees Fahrenheit, while perhaps physically off-putting, worked perfectly to match the mood that he wanted to set.

Not to mention, it helped hide the approach of the peacock and the allies he’d gathered for this endeavor.

The hospital ahead was fairly quiet, none of the paramedics that were out dealing with accidents caused by the storm and careless drivers in tandem having returned to the building just yet, and everyone within was simply waiting, each for their own reasons. And, all of the guards that the bird expected to be watching out for Hawken were inside the building, half-blind to anything that moved around outdoors.

“Stevens, take your men to the front and side entrances,” Shen ordered, eyeing the building as he flexed his feathers. “Cause a ruckus, make a distraction while Arrad does the same around back. I will take the entry via an upper window somewhere when Desmond blacks the cameras, and slip inside while the guards are all busy.” He brought his wings to his beak, tapping on it thoughtfully. “They’ll probably keep one or two in the boy’s room, so I will need time to deal with them before we can call a victory; make sure I have that time.”

The man he addressed nodded, he and those around him hoisting their weapons up onto their shoulders again and splitting off into the groups previously arranged. Then, they set off into the snow toward the hospital, while Shen smirked and took to the air, using the whipping wind and whiteout conditions to his advantage as he glided toward the eastern face of the building. To anyone who might have seen him, he would have appeared as little more than a loose plastic bag taken by the storm, fluttering through the air.

* * *

Dyllon Stevens wasn’t stupid; he knew that even if they succeeded in this assassination attempt that there was at least an 80% chance that they would all end up either caught, or killed by the guards in the process. But, he hadn’t signed on with Malin’s original endeavor because he was a terribly rational or moral soul either; something about that boy and his compatriots disgusted him.

He tromped through the parking lot, covering his gun under the thick coat he bore (he didn’t know how Shen could deal with the storm wearing only that silk robe he seemed to covet; weren’t peacocks tropical birds?), and led his entourage up to the front entrance. Nobody really expected a frontal attack, so no alarms went off as they stepped through the doors, tracking snow and drawing just a nonchalant attention and raising of eyebrows from both the receptionist at the desk and the two skinny blond Vikings standing in the lobby space.

The moment Dyllon whipped out his Uzi, however, all hell broke loose.

The apparent twins yelled in shock, before dropping to the ground to avoid bullets (Stevens didn’t miss the flashes of reddish-orange than been seen on the warfront however, telling him that any serious attacks would have to be made close in) and rolling a short way before they both leapt up again, the silvery spears in their hands whirling viciously as they came at the group.

The distraction force stumbled out of the way of their swings, but kept up fire, just enough force to hold the Vikings back. It did not, however, take long for the noise to attract reinforcements.

An animalistic screech sounded through the building, echoing in an almost metal-on-metal style sound coming from three different directions. Stevens, who was near the edge of his group, suddenly found himself flattened to the ground by a powerful force. It flipped him over, and suddenly he was staring straight up into the almost chartreuse, narrowed eyes of a Metaraptor, gray-green with charcoal-like black stripes and markings across his face and body. The curled lips bearing dozens of sharp, serrated teeth coupled with a threateningly swaying tail told Dyllon that his next move would likely decide his life.

“Drop your weapon,” Shadow snarled, “and I won’t kill or otherwise seriously cripple you.”

It was no-nonsense, and direct, leaving little room for argument, and Stevens knew the raptor meant every word. Even as gunfire still raged around them, Dyllon reluctantly obliged, letting go of the gun still clutched in his grip and leaving his hands wide open.

Shadow relaxed slightly at the response. “Good,” he growled. “Now…” he twisted around, tail slamming into the side of Dyllon’s head and knocking him out with one smooth blow.

A stray bullet then zipped past the raptor, drawing his attention to the next dissident as Rachel brought down a third with a powerful (and no doubt painful) kick.

“Can’t get any real rest here, can we?” Shadow hissed, and leaped.

* * *

Shen, meanwhile, scaled the bricks outside the building, the razor edges of his metal-encased claws and wing feathers digging into the wall and allowing him to haul himself upward with ease. About three floors off the ground, he craned his head and peeked carefully through a dark window.

The room was empty, the bed unoccupied. The peacock grinned and reached over, carving around the edge of the pane to release the frame and pushing the window open before crawling in. Standing up, he slid the glass down again so as not to attract any further attention from outside (he knew the city police would be on their way soon enough, if they hadn’t already been called) and walked over to the door that led out into the hospital, waiting.

As soon as the band on his wrist flashed, Shen opened the door and strutted into the hall, confident no one would see him moving through the security cameras. The sounds of gunfire and people yelling echoed through the halls, mixed with roars and screeches Shen quickly recognized; not only were some of the Vikings posted as guards, but clearly also several of the raptors, a dragon or two somewhere, and he definitely recognized the bone-quaking roar of a tiger from the back of the building.

Clearly, however, they were all down on the first floor; the peacock could detect nothing at all higher up, save some hospital personnel rushing away from the area. Had there been lookouts scattered throughout the building prior, the distraction teams had done their jobs in drawing them away. Shen nodded in satisfaction and turned to trot down the hallway, heading for the nearest stairwell.

In the four weeks that had passed since news of Hawken’s incident and his being confined to hospital care, Shen had spent most of his time traveling from the east coast to the young man’s home state, staying off the radar of all those except the men who had been allied to Malin and gathering up at least enough of a force, he believed, to at least finish this job. When he wasn’t busy recruiting and traveling, he had pored over the layout of the hospital, figuring out how best to get in and then through to Hawken’s room undetected, as well as, of course, where the room was currently located as patients were so often moved around as the staff needed.

An unfortunate older nurse happened to be traveling down the same stairwell that Shen had chosen to use, but he hadn’t bothered with the woman long; one well-aimed kick and she fell unconscious against the wall, slowly bleeding from the gashes the bird’s claws had left across her cheek and forehead.

Shen frowned in disgust, wiping his claws off on her apron before continuing upward. At his intended floor he pushed open the door and slipped out again, glancing around to ensure no one was coming his way. When no personnel or armed Vikings materialized, he swept rapidly down the hallway, passing the open center of the building as he headed for the other side of the structure.

Hawken’s current room was the largest on the floor, an accommodation made for the fact that full-grown dragons and a Macawnivore were some of the regular visitors the hospital was forced to now admit with their current patient. This, in turn, made it easy for Shen to locate it, opening out toward the building center.

The peacock used one of his blades to push open the door, expecting someone or something to come leaping out after him with the disturbance. When nothing happened, his brow arched, and he cautiously stuck his head into the room.

Other than the young man in a coma on the hospital bed, the space seemed basically empty. Shen frowned; surely they wouldn’t all leave Hawken completely unattended? He glanced back out into the hospital commons area, now expecting a guard to rush him from behind.

Nothing.

“Ah very well, now or never take the chance,” Shen muttered, rolling his shoulders and pulling from his robe a miniature version of his original glaive (frustratingly lost in the retreat from Malin’s war front). One, two steps and he was above Hawken’s bed, weapon raised. He paused for a moment, contemplating how easy it had just become to finish this, before swinging down, aiming for the young man’s neck.

The blade collided not with flesh and cloth, but with the glinting edge of a slightly stronger metal, eliciting a painful squeal of chipped blade. Shen yelped in surprise as the axe twisted, throwing him well away from the bed, before he focused up toward the wielder.

“How did I know you’d eventually show up again?” Astrid snarled, side-stepping around Hawken’s bed and advancing toward the peacock. “You couldn’t have just made it easy and gotten blown up with the rest of the fleet, could you?”

“Someone had to stick around in case Malin himself failed,” Shen snapped back, twirling his own weapon and jabbing it at Astrid, who parried the thrust more than easily. “And since he did, so spectacularly too, it was then only a matter of waiting for the right moment. What better time to end all this than when the nuisance is entirely unable to fight back, hmm?”

He swung the glaive again, using the attack as a cover to slide out a feather blade in the grip of his other wing and slashing it at Astrid from two directions, which she again danced around and bowed out of the way with practiced precision.

“You are a coward then, attacking when your opponent can’t defend himself,” Astrid spat. “You’re a disgrace of a warrior.”

“I cannot fault what I was made to be,” Shen scoffed dismissively. “I was rather hoping I would have at least someone to fight, so that it wasn’t all simply a casual shot for the victory. Other than that old nurse in the stairway, of course, it’s been a month since I’ve properly killed anyone.”

The peacock arched his talons and spun on the tips expertly, coming in low under Astrid’s guard even as she redirected her swing, and brought the glaive up. With the slow undercut it bypassed Astrid’s field, but it didn’t quite manage to pierce the Viking’s suit. The blow did, however, knock Astrid off balance, enough for Shen to spin forward and land a kick to her midsection, slamming the warrioress against the far wall.

“You, however, seem to have lost a bit of your touch,” he mused, tutting condescendingly. “How disappointing.”

Astrid grunted, gaining her breath back as she moved to stand up; field or not, flying that far was going to impact her somehow. “Yeah, well,” she wheezed, “I’m not the only one you have to worry about either, you clueless birdbrain.”

A rhythmic metallic clinking send a chilling shiver down Shen’s spine, doubling as a guttural hiss followed the sound; the bird knew all about the capabilities of the snake that had betrayed Malin’s trust.

“Yer fast, Shen, but there ain’t much that can outrun a bullet, or a rattler’s strike,” Jake growled, leveling the Gatling gun on his tail with the bird’s head. “Nobody told you the Descendants can basically hide in plain sight, did they?”

Shen couldn’t deny it; he was stuck now. If he twitched, the rattlesnake would not hesitate to put six holes through his head in a split second, and Astrid was walking back toward him.

“You really have lived up to your name, haven’t you Jacob?” he said softly, drawing another angered hiss from the snake as he tried to think of an out. Not much to work with, unless…

His tail feathers were still lined with metal as well, and Jake’s underside was really, really close to them, completely unsuspecting.

Shen barely twitched within Jake’s line of vision, but it was enough to whip his long feathers up and rake them deep into Jake’s belly scales. The rattlesnake yelled in pain and fired on reflex, but his gun had moved in his spasm and the resulting blast only peppered a handful of holes into the wall beyond.

Shen spun, now with his opening, and drove a feather blade into Jake’s tail as he parried Astrid with his glaive once more, slowing them both and leaving an open path straight to Hawken again. The peacock took it without hesitation, grabbing a second feather blade and leaping toward the prone young man.

Halfway through his jump, a new pain pierced Shen’s lower leg, and Shen found his body rapidly losing feeling from that point outward, all of his muscles locking in place and disregarding every command he sent to move them.

Unable to correct himself, Shen fell to the ground just short of the bed frame, his head clanging off of a support bar underneath the mattress and blurring his vision for a moment. As it cleared, he spotted what had tagged him and ruined one last chance at finishing off the dragon boy: the long, twisting coils of a king cobra looped around the bed’s support bars, the head and hood rising spread above him and glowering down dangerously.

“You know, Speed Stinger venom is a truly marvelous toxin,” Kingsley mused, uncoiling and rising higher over Shen, before bending his head down level with the paralyzed bird’s. “Your opponent stays alive and fully aware of what’s going on, but in mere seconds can’t move at all.” He shook his head and leaned closer. “See, here was your mistake, Shen: you might have been able to fight off two or three of us together whilst in the heat of a battle, when we had to watch our backs for threats other than a crazed white avian, but when it’s just you we have to worry about, you’re well outmatched. You also never came against me or Jake, and here, you’re alone, and we can call on hundreds of close friends if we had needed to. Did you really expect this to play out in your favor?”

Astrid walked forward, now far less guarded about her approach, and grabbed the weapons from Shen’s frozen grip, looking them over with interest.

“I have to say, these are some very finely crafted weapons,” she admired. “The feather design…it’s quite beautiful.” A smirk flashed across her expression. “Well, you won’t be needing them anymore, so I’m sure Holly will appreciate them.” Reaching down a second time, she pulled the others out from where they were hidden away in Shen’s sleeves, taking his inability to resist to full advantage. “My, tables turned, didn’t they? What was it you said, ‘end it all when the nuisance is entirely unable to fight back’?” she chuckled dryly. “Yeah, these guys can probably take it from here. You won’t be moving for another six hours or so, so they should have a breeze locking you away.”

Astrid stepped aside as several policemen came marching in, hoisting up the statuesque Shen and hauling him out of the room. The peacock’s eyes were the only thing that could still shift, giving off enough of his emotions to let the others know exactly what he was thinking: underneath the fury of having failed, again, he knew the best he could hope for was a padded container in a personally fitted straightjacket.

“Have the other delinquents been taken care of downstairs?” Jake asked flatly, spitting out the knife he pulled from his tail and watching passively as the hole sealed up in seconds.

One of the officers nodded. “Yeah, your friends got them tied down pretty quickly, so we’re just hauling them out now too.”

“Good. And, on your way out, get the staff here to check the stairwells; the warbird said he ran into a nurse in one of them, and I don’t want him to claim any more lives to his record.”

“Yes…uh, yes sir.”

Formalities finished, the officers vacated the room, leaving Astrid and the two Descendants on their own again.

“So,” Jake spoke up first again, coiling up on a chair as he shrank back down to a more manageable size, “who wants te be the one to let the others know Shen showed up? We all know how Holly, the two Furies, and company will not be complacent upon hearing that little news clip.”

Astrid sighed, and slumped into a chair of her own as she rubbed her temples. “Ugh, I don’t even want to think about that; we only just got Amethyst to take time _away_ from the hospital, with Toothless’ encouragement,” she groaned. After a moment of silence, she leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. “I’ll let them know, but not just yet.”

Quiet returned, and they all looked over at Hawken, still fully undisturbed throughout the scuffle that had just taken place.

“I just pray that was the last thing we deal with here,” Astrid spoke again. “It’s worrying enough that he’s still not anywhere near waking up after all this time, without having to fret over additional threats on his life. Not to mention the effect this has been having on everyone.”

“We’ll get through it,” Kingsley reassured, coiling once again around Hawken’s bedframe. “There’s a lot more strength between us than you might think. It’s just that Hawken’s always been the one there holding us up; now, we do the same for him, until he comes back to us.”


	39. Berk Minus One

_When fallen be a beloved heart_

_All the earth moves on_

_Stars will not in passing pause_

_Nor the sun forbear the dawn_

_On forth must life still ever tread_

_The days will toil through_

_Those passing though their minds remain_

_With the hurt and fallen few_

The island was once more blanketed under several feet of snow, but the Hooligans were well used to that sort of thing. For the most part, it just meant that life as getting on as it usually did once more; winter held no care for the quarrels of the archipelago’s inhabitants, it only swept in unfeeling as it always had and left behind a path of crystalline white.

The twins were once again back to being the main source of everyone’s headaches (and Camicazi every other day when she was on the island; she had to make sure her loyalty to her husband was well ingrained, she claimed whenever berated for her behavior), and the island’s most recently added inhabitants were settling into their new homes fairly quietly.

Even that, though, had caused a bit of a stir amongst a few of the villagers.

Eret had, since the war in New York, made the decision on his new lifestyle choice quite clear to all: while he was still a trapper and trader at heart, he found other uses for his many skills on Berk that were far more conducive to a peaceful atmosphere, and had turned the care of his ship over to his right-hand mate Grimligh. The rest of the crew had not been pointedly pleased, but after a little bit of convincing (including reassurances he was still going to be around), they had agreed on a sort of compromise, making Berk the heart of their operations as they expanded the island’s trading means while roping Eret into at least agreeing to continue to partake in some of their voyages.

Eret smirked; looking out onto the lower plaza of the town, he had become quite pleasantly surprised at how relaxing it was to rest on the porch of his new house, the biting cold of the winter air kept at bay by the dragon at his side. He’d never told his men (though some of them surely inferred it), but the strongest reason he’d actually decided to stay on the island had been Spitfire; running through a war with the Changewing had made the Sami realize just how much he could trust the dragon, and how impossible it would be now for him to even think of leaving him here if he left. A ship, too, was no good place for so large a creature. No, far better to centralize himself here amongst the rest of the crazy dragon riders.

There was a downside to the new location though; he lived only a few houses away from the building that now housed Fishlegs, Cami, and more pointedly the twins. As mentioned before Eret was still a trader, and so had been situated by Stoick near the shipyard and docks, and that had placed him right near the troublemakers. Ruffnut and Tuffnut had both begun to learn though that just because nobody appeared to be home did not mean the house was deserted; after all, the dragon of that particular home was a Changewing who was far more used to their antics, and Spitfire had sent the mischievous pair and their Zippleback running more than once.

Glancing up along the dragon-cleared path into the village, the Sami’s expression perked slightly further at spotting the other new village addition heading his way. Attonius hadn’t yet taken to any dragon companions, but with his clear change of heart since the last time he’d been on Berk, some of the villagers had taken to betting on how long it would be before the former priest had one of the reptiles at his side as well.

Despite still having his loose ties to Rome, Attonius had readily accepted an offer by the chief to have a home on Berk as well; he knew there was little left in Italy for him with how the people there had ostracized him and his colleagues, and Brutus had taken well to his position of leadership at the sanctuary; they would be fine without the former priest being present at all times.

Being the scholar he was, Attonius had been situated closer to Gothi and the entrance to Berk’s book and script stores. The man had already formed strong relationships with Fishlegs (especially now due to the latter’s relatively new translating ability) and Zipeau, and was already putting their knowledge and skills to use in new books, copies of the Bible (the full text now rather than parts, which Attonius was ecstatic about), and, to everyone’s surprise, skilled mapmaking.

“Afternoon, old friend,” Attonius greeted, approaching the steps to Eret’s house. The former trapper chuckled as he stood up to meet his visitor.

“Old?” he laughed. “We’ve known each other for what, five months?”

“Compared to everyone else around here that is an ancient association for me,” Attonius quipped back, grinning.

This, Eret could not refute. He held his hand out, offering a seat on the lone chair that sat upon the makeshift porch (where he had been sitting against Spitfire’s side was more than enough for him) which Attonius gladly took.

“Has any further word come by about Hawken?” Attonius asked inquisitively. “I know you associate with the collective team of youngsters more often than I do currently.”

“Grudgingly, half the time,” Eret sighed, eyes wandering toward the Ingerman/Thorston house, “seeing as how a great deal of it is with characters like the twins or Sasha. But, I was able to talk with Astrid a couple of days ago; Hawken is apparently slowly recovering now. The burns and such he had are healing fully now, but he’s still not conscious.

“I’ve noticed Amethyst has been getting edgier as time goes by too,” he continued, “which doesn’t spell anything good out for anyone if her temper breaks again. Though…” he paused, and looked over at Attonius with the hints of a sly smile, “…I personally think it might be more than just Hawken’s condition that’s getting to her at the moment.”

The comment drew a chuckle from Attonius, who nodded his agreement. “Yes, I think I am inclined to agree. After all, Descendant or not she’s still a dragon, just like all the others who’ve nested over the recent months.” A smirk, oddly fitting the minister’s face, slowly appeared. “I think, in fact, that there is a bet going around the village on how long it will take before she and Toothless finally solidify their relationship, almost running as high as how long it will take Hiccup to propose to Astrid.”

“And if either of them hear of that rumor, then everyone will be in trouble no matter how true it may be,” a new voice cut in from above. A familiar Stormcutter dropped into view, flaring his wings and touching down on the cleared path, scattering snow with the impact as his rider hopped to the ground.

“Forgive my interruption,” Valka continued, brushing herself off, “but your crew returned from another short trip Eret and the ship is docked in the harbor currently. They asked me to find you and inform you that they spotted a handful of ships with… _familiar_ insignias heading our way, and they believe they’re looking for all of you. Stoick also would like to know who these characters might be.”

Eret let out a frustrated groan, leaning back and dragging a hand down his face. “Oh, for the love of…you couldn’t just stay away and leave well enough alone, Viggo?” he muttered.

“Who?” Attonius asked, noting the way Valka’s expression darkened when Eret said the name.

“Viggo Grimborn,” Eret answered sourly, looking toward Valka. “With the number of times I ran into you before Drago was taken out I’m not surprised you’re familiar with him, or his brother Ryker more so I’m sure. Anyway, Attonius: he’s a dragon hunter, and he and his brother are the only two people I know of who were better at catching dragons than I was, and cunning enough to keep well out of Drago’s influence, the lucky bastards. If they’re coming here…ugh, I wish Hawken was awake, we could really use him if they’re going to show up.”

Valka pursed her lips; she definitely remembered Viggo, if still only in relative passing; the man was never one to show himself in the open on the front lines, so she somewhat doubted they’d see him personally. But, the world had shifted again recently, so the man could very well be trying to make his presence and power known again.

“I’ll gather the team, tell them to prepare a counter if the man has some less-than-diplomatic intention,” Valka said, turning and hopping onto Cloudjumper’s back again. “Eret, you know how trappers and hunters work best, so I suggest you talk to Stoick, Hiccup, and Toothless immediately.” Cloudjumper swept his massive wings downward, and the two of them were off, racing over the rooftops.

“This the same man who would send envoys with dragons, teeth, and skins south to the Roman markets all the time?” Attonius queried, coming to stand next to Eret. “I was always told they were from suppliers in the far north, but never more detail than that.”

The latter nodded. “He’s very good at what he does,” he sighed, “and has thus far either blatantly ignored or magically missed all the signs that say dragons are intelligent, sentient creatures; on the other hand, so did I for so long.”

“You’re not alone in that, don’t worry,” Attonius muttered.

Eret huffed, tapping Spitfire to get him up as they left the porch. “Well, I honestly pity him if Hiccup and company can’t convince Viggo, and Hawken wakes up to that news.”

Attonius let out a chuckle and nodded. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s a small chance. Face the boy with a gift straight from the Almighty on a topic that he won’t lose, never mind if it’s through persuasion or pain, there’s only a couple outcomes. But I pray it won’t come to that.” He glanced up through the village as a Night Fury with a notably violet sheen raced by.

“On the other hand, even if Hawken can’t be of help if things go south, Amethyst might just take his place.”

* * *

Valka wasted no time heading to the forge, the location the teens tended to congregate at if they weren’t at the hospital, and was unsurprised to find Ember, Hiccup, Astrid, and several others there. She slid off Cloudjumper’s back and walked in, turning every head when she didn’t give greeting but instead presented a dour expression.

“Something happen, Mom?” Hiccup queried worriedly.

“Eret’s old cohorts are on the search for him and they’ve pinpointed him here,” she relayed. “Blasted hunters from the north, we’ve no idea if they’re on peaceful terms or coming here to start something, so get your gear ready in case it’s the latter.”

“Wait, who’s heading them?” Astrid asked, sharing a glance with Hiccup and Zipeau, whom both started forming the same idea she had.

“Man by the name of Viggo Grimborn,” Valka answered, “inherited the trade from his father and expanded it to a much wider influence, one that unfortunately was good enough to keep him away from the likes of Drago and Jezebel.”

“Well that settles it,” Ember quipped, dropping the shaping tool in her hand and reaching for her bow on the wall, strapping it and the quiver in place. “Since Hawken’s still out we can’t leave things to chance, so I’m gonna give them the full outfit; we’ll see if they’re stupid enough to try anything then. Astrid, still got that glaive somewhere or does Holly have it now?”

“Actually I think she handed it off to Cami, though what harebrained purpose that was for I’ll never know,” Astrid sighed. “I’ll let them know though, everyone in full outfit. Valka, can you track down Twintail? He’s over by the cliffs somewhere.”

“Aye,” Valka agreed, turning tail once again and hooking herself up onto Cloudjumper with practiced ease, the dragon already turning away to take off. As they left, Hiccup let out a frustrated grumble and slammed a fist into the work desk nearby.

“This really better not be what I think it is,” he growled. “We don’t have time for another war.”

* * *

A dozen ships ringed the outside of the harbor as a single vessel approached the docks. The sails were emblazoned with incredible attention to detail by a generic dragon speared through its middle with both sword and fletched arrow, a sight well familiar to Eret who stood to the side of Hiccup and Stoick. He had hoped to never see that insignia again however, especially not under these conditions.

They had all agreed to hold the dragons back so as to not prematurely set something off; they would be able to call them in later for a display if necessary anyway, but for now they would insist on diplomacy for as long as possible (even if that diplomatic hand was well-brandished with defenses).

Hiccup and the others had seen the new TV season that had been released since Hawken had been out, so they had developed a rudimentary idea of who they might expect off the envoy that approached. The fact he was actually there though as a bit of a shock for all.

He was tall, equal in height at least with Hiccup if not perhaps a little taller, but more muscular, and bore a crown of short brown hair so dark it was nearly black, matched by a sculpted mustache and beard. This, paired with the outfit of high-quality leather and cloth adorned on the shoulders and waist with spikes and plates and completed with a broad sword in its scabbard at his side, presented the image of a man who knew his capabilities, his reach, and every bit of influence he could pull to his desire. The moment his foot hit the dock, a tension rose up that sent shivers rolling down Eret’s spine.

“So, this is where you and your crew vanished off the face of the earth to,” Viggo drawled, his words in a tone like he was doing nothing more than visiting a bench for a bit of rest on a leisurely walk as he looked the former trapper up and down critically. “After all that you had managed to accomplish, that reputation so treasured and upheld, I must admit that the last place I thought I would locate you would be on an island full of dragon lovers.”

Eret shrugged, doing his best not to show his discomfort. “A few months ago I would have been firmly of the same opinion, Viggo,” he said. “But, I’ll say enough has happened in that span of time to firmly root my thoughts elsewhere. What I had before was a hollow claim on an honor that is nonexistent.”

Hiccup did not miss the twitch of the other hunter’s eye, but Viggo let off no other indication of his emotions as he turned to the chief and his son. “Forgive my informal entrance,” he excused, giving a curt nod. “Though I am sure you already know who I am given this man who stands with you, my name is Viggo Grimborn, leader of the Coalition of Hunters and Trappers, of which this man Eret, son of Eret, was by strict contract allied to.”

“Greetings to you, Viggo,” Stoick replied in a manner, true to his name, of stoicism. “I am Stoick the Vast, Chief of the Hairy Hooligan tribe of Berk, and this is my son Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Dragon Whisperer and heir to the chiefdom here. What manner of business do you visit us for?”

“Yes, I’ve heard quite a great deal about the both of you,” Viggo noted, “and of the riders that are claimed to follow you. The power you supposedly wield is…well, intriguing to say the least, and awe-inspiring if even only slivers are true, but I rather doubt I can believe all of the tales that roam these waters.”

“You might be surprised to find out just how strange the truth is then, Viggo,” Eret said curtly. Viggo nodded, his gaze switching back to Eret for a moment with the same cool temperament he’d come ashore with.

“I did not travel all this way of course to trade stories,” he said abruptly, turning again to the chief before looking back to Eret. “My reasons for visiting the shores of Berk are several and all of importance. The first is you, Eret; any member of the Coalition, by blood or by contract, knows it is strictly against our customs to simply step away from it. You had a duty to uphold especially in the position I awarded you, and a payment due for failing to stay that duty. And of course, as well you know, if you wish to leave altogether there are customs to be followed through.”

Upon saying this, several of the men that had accompanied Viggo took up positions in formation behind their leader, hands hovering over their weapons in expectation of a struggle.

“I never forgot what you sought to require, Viggo,” Eret growled back. “All the years I worked for you and then in tandem to Drago hammered it hard into my mind. But as I said, a lot has changed. You’ll find I will no longer uphold the duties I once had, nor hand over your expected ‘payment’, not after what I’ve seen on these shores. Neither will I intend to follow through the severance agreements; it was hard enough finding a way to remove the tattoos I already had with the help of the Berkians, and I do not have interest in bearing any more.”

“Have you interest in bearing a shortened arm instead then?!” one of Viggo’s men shouted suddenly, unsheathing his sword. Eret did the same in turn, but Viggo held up a hand, staying his follower; Eret didn’t doubt though that it was partly due to the luster of the metal that he held. As far as he knew, Viggo and company had never come across Mysteel.

“I promise you Eret that that is a decision you will regret soon enough, but you are not my only concern,” Viggo intoned. His gaze swung to Stoick and Hiccup once more, noting that the two of them also had their hands hovering over weapon hilts. “I have no interest in bringing things to outright bloodshed here gentlemen, as it would suit neither of our interests, but this island and your practices pose a threat to me that I cannot ignore either. I am a businessman, my profession supplying markets from the Moroccan Moors to China, and the false ideals and pretenses you are parading around, the attacks that have been made by your allies on my men’s ships, have forced me to bring my own hand down. I have much that I could bring to my aide, but I would rather strike a bargain than slow progress, so I offer you this.

“Convince the other tribes of this archipelago, the like-minded people of the mainland as well, to keep out of my dealings from this point forward, and I can promise I will give you here no trouble as well; we may keep to our own. I can offer a proposition of trade or simply straight neutrality, especially if I am allowed to depart from this region with a handful of dragons. There are, after all, orders I must fulfill promptly.”

“Not likely, Viggo,” Hiccup replied shortly. “I’ve learned the impacts of endeavors like yours from the history of other places and it is nothing but a short-term for money and power that will destroy the rest of the world. Worse, your business is the hunting, selling, and slaughtering of dragons and I, personally, cannot permit to stand idly by and let that happen. In case you’ve missed the memo, it’s been no less than proven most dragons are sentient creatures, so what you are doing is nothing short of a systematic genocide.

“And clearly,” he continued, “even those under you have learned it’s wrong. I mean, look here: just a couple of encounters with us and one of your best trappers turned against you. Shouldn’t that say something?”

“My son will have my backing on this as well,” Stoick agreed, glaring down at Viggo. “All dragons within the perimeters of Berk, its waters, and our allied neighbors, are directly under our protection, and our allies will protect their own. It would be a far more intelligent move on your part, Viggo, to rethink your methods of business in this world.”

Viggo chuckled, before letting out a resigned sigh. “Oh, I see. The honorable hearts move to protect their so-called innocent,” he mused, glancing up along the cliffs. “Where contracts are concerned I won’t be the one to let incidents such as this slip, lest it portray an example others wish to follow, and you are in dangerous waters to obstruct what has been built for centuries. Very well however, I give you this ultimatum: Eret and his crew will be taken back by me for reprimand and severance customs, by force if so necessary, and then he can be free to do as he wishes.” He gestured to the dozen ships that lay at the ready, all of them larger than any of Berk’s vessels and visibly armed to the teeth. “Then, if you do not relent in your attacks on my ships, then by both Viking law and my sworn allegiance to uphold my family’s traditions you will have a blood feud on your hands, one that will stretch across the oceans and continents. I have many loyal members of the Coalition to back me, and I fall sway to no fairy tales spread by gossips. What, other than the dragons we hunt, do you have to oppose with?”

The hunter then reached down with practiced fluidity and pulled out a small dagger from his belt, twirling the impressively shiny blade (if not as lustrous as Eret’s Mysteel) and holding it up. “A reminder to you Eret, and a gift to Stoick,” he quipped, and flicked the dagger forward.

Neither man bothered flinching however as the knife moved to pass both of them, the Gronckle Iron blade bounced harmlessly off first the Myscale incorporated in Eret’s vest, then clattered at Stoick’s feet. Then, Stoick looked to Hiccup, who pulled out Framherja.

“Eret, get behind me,” Hiccup ordered, the other man obliging as Hiccup brought up two fingers and whistled.

A pair of answering screeches rent the sky, drawing swords and bows up from the men behind Viggo and on the boats, but he wisely gave no order to fire as he watched a pair of dragons he thought he’d seen the last of decades before fly in; Night Furies. Behind them, a girl followed on an armored Nadder, and another young woman rode…he’d heard of them but never personally seen them…a Shadowracer.

The four dragons and two riders descended to the docks, the riders drawing weapons and the Night Furies presenting furious snarls, their scales fluorescing in a manner Viggo had never seen before.

“Viggo Grimborn, head of your Coalition of Hunters, allow me to introduce you to a few of my family members,” Hiccup said almost lightly. “This is Toothless, the Alpha of Berk, and Achlema Halailah, Descendant relative of the dragon man Hawken Carlton, whom I’m sure you’ve heard of. Behind them, Ember Orlin of Israel and Astrid Hofferson of Berk, two of the best warriors in the archipelago.”

The heir stepped forward slightly, keeping both hands now on his bow. “Tell me, have you ever faced a Night Fury in their energized state? What about two?” He stepped forward again, flanked by the pair of black dragons. “We can call on far more aid as well; what is your next move?”

Viggo responded by pulling out a miniaturized crossbow, already loaded with several darts. “A single one of these and they could be incapacitated in seconds,” he said. “I hunt dragons, do you think I wouldn’t be equipped when visiting an island full of them? I’m sure you are aware of how effective purified eel extract and dragonroot can be, on nearly any dragon.”

“You would first have to hit us where we don’t have armor, and when we aren’t prepared for attack,” Amethyst snarled, finally drawing the first expression from Viggo that wasn’t cool indifference in the form of a startled eyebrow raise. “And yes, some of us can talk, there’s your first clue that you’re really in the wrong. You’d have to be faster than a Night Fury to shoot us, and most dragons here have already been treated to resist the toxins in eels; having a guy who can turn into a Typhoomerang at will helps with that. To top it all off, I and several others on this island aren’t like most dragons; dragonroot will have no effect on us unless we want to be lazy.”

The crests on the female Night Fury’s back split apart, and between them, electric sparks began to dance. “You certainly aren’t faster than I can fire either, Viggo,” she warned. “Night Fury fire has a very interesting reaction with lightning as well; keep pushing us here and you’ll see what it is up close.”

“Like Eret mentioned, the truth is strange enough stories aren’t necessary,” Hiccup drawled, pulling back the string on Framherja. “Meet the weapon forged as a sister to Mjolnir.”

Viggo’s eyes finally began to widen in visible shock as he realized where he now stood, staring at a dancing line of light on the weapon trained toward him. Tales from afar were nearly always exaggerations, and this was supposed to have been a far easier out. “But that’s…you couldn’t possibly hold such a thing!” he exclaimed.

Hiccup smirked. “I can, unfortunately for you. It was a gift from a friend, and as I said forged in the same manner as Mjolnir. You want to keep up this banter I could call Thor and his family to drop by for a visit as well.”

“You’re bluffing, you have to be,” Viggo countered, gaining back some of his composure. “The old Norse myths are no more than that; such gods don’t exist or there would have been greater proof.”

“They’re not gods, but yes, several of them actually exist,” Ember interjected, hopping off of Orha and stringing an arrow on her own bow. “The Oceanguard of whom the legends of Jormungandr arose is actually just off these shores here currently; he and Loki have been staying behind on Berk for some time now.”

“But really Viggo, we don’t need to call in a family of ancient guardians to protect this island from you,” Toothless growled. The Night Fury lifted his head, closing his eyes and letting out a ringing, pulsing call, somewhat mimicking the sound he knew all too well from dragons like the Bewilderbeasts. In response to the reverberating call, dragons appeared on every ledge above them, some carrying riders and others circling in the sky without. Behind Viggo and his entourage, the waters of the bay swirled and writhed as oceanic dragons around the island gathered too, waiting.

“Around here, no dragon questions the motive when I give a call to arms,” Toothless said, standing taller. “Either Hiccup or I can with a single yell summon hundreds of dragons, far more than your fleet here could ever deal with presently.” His scales brightened another level as he glared down at Viggo, who had finally grasped just how wrongly he had prepared for the danger he’d walked himself into, for the first time in many years. “And it only takes a couple of hours for your old friend”- Toothless glanced upward, where a Stormcutter and rider Viggo immediately recognized from past reports of his men, “-to fly north to recruit Tohar if that’s not enough.”

“And who is Tohar?”

“The white Bewilderbeast Alpha that governs the north. As you know who Drago was, I am sure you know what kind of dragon I speak of.”

So much for his own ultimatum, as he was clearly trumped here; Viggo was furious under his barely controlled visage. Drago and Jezebel had both been smart, cunning, yet he’d managed to outmaneuver or bargain with them to keep his own free means every time they’d crossed paths, staying his focus on a sole aim that only supplied the two villains on the side. However, they had shared his views more or less on dragons, which made it easier. This…this was something else entirely however, an immovable object that his manipulative will could not budge, worse than the Alagaesians of the steppes of Asia.

The Berkians had allies to dredge up now at every turn imaginable, weapons of a caliber he thought had ended with the sorceress’ death, and this was still without even meeting the famed dragon man whose tales had begun spreading like wildfire. Viggo could only surmise that if Hawken’s friends here could pop off plans and powers to this extent, if Hawken himself showed up then there would be no chance of winning any battle he put forth, not where he stood now. For once, the wise decision was to admit defeat, gain further knowledge before he planned any other moves.

Viggo turned, and stiffly waved his hand, the weapons brought to bear before now lowering at the signal. Then, he turned to the heir with the lightning bow and the pair of glowing Night Furies. “Very well, Hiccup the Dragon Whisperer,” he placated reluctantly, “loathe as I am to admit it, you hold well the upper hand in this instance. For now, to avoid further conflict with you or your allies I will withdraw the forces I have within this archipelago and leave your dragons in peace.”

“Wise choice,” Hiccup noted, relaxing his grip slightly on Framherja just enough to abate the charge building on it. “I’m sure we’ll both be appreciative of this not having come to blows; I’ve seen enough bloodshed in recent months to last me a lifetime, and after all, we haven’t even asked Jake or Holly to come down yet.” His hand gestured to the cliffs, and Viggo followed his aim to find a massive snake bearing a black hat and an unrecognizable weapon sitting on the path high above, next to which stood a young girl he could swear was covered in more blades and pointy objects than actual clothing. The tale of a fiasco months before in Rome came to mind.

“Let me guess: that was the creature that so shook Rome’s confidence, isn’t he?” Viggo queried guardedly.

Hiccup nodded stiffly. “Yes; I’m guessing that means you know his capabilities, and I’m sure you can also guess the reputation of Hawken’s sister.”

Viggo gave a stiff nod. “I do. For now if you permit I am taking leave of this place. But, I would mark my words carefully, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III; I doubt our dealings are truly over at this point.”

“Find another hobby of which there are thousands to choose from, and then they could be,” Astrid quipped somewhere in the background, but Viggo paid her no mind. Instead, he turned to board his ship once more, brooding dangerously as he glanced at the pair of black dragons that flanked Hiccup.

Night Furies were true legends, and he knew the two were likely the only ones left in existence (that witch had hunted them out before he could). That alone made either one worth a fortune on the world’s black markets, but their rarity was also belied by the power they wielded. To have one of them…well, he’d be holding a key to fame and a hard bargaining chip against Berk for their meddling, but it was foolish to think that would ever happen. Another dragon though…

As the vessels began to turn and head away from the bay, Viggo’s attention was drawn back again as that trademark shriek filled the air for a moment, and an indigo fireball rocketed up into the air, exploding with enough force for him to feel the shockwave, finalizing that point of power, and Toothless’ intentions. But it only steeled the hunter’s resolve for when he returned to his base. Things were panning out now that he could not possibly let go of, plans that had been set in motion decades before, and this stumbling block needed to be removed. The question left to ponder was how.

* * *

<It really does never end, does it?> Toothless sighed, watching the boats with those sickening insignias sail away with displeasure.

Hiccup laid a hand on the Night Fury’s head reassuringly. “Hey, look on the bright side, alright?” he encouraged. “It didn’t come to blows, despite his intentions, Eret’s still got both his head and his freedom, and if it had turned violent Viggo would have lost really quickly. You still have the barrier gem on your armor, right?”

At this, Toothless wilted, a guilty expression blooming on his face, and Hiccup groaned. “Alright, really? Why wouldn’t you put that on?”

<Because I forgot, okay? It happens.>

“No, not okay. You were the one at most risk of being shot and you’re not immune to dragonroot. Ugh, but it’s too late to argue about it now, isn’t it?”

Hiccup glanced to the east, where Valka and Cloudjumper were gliding in for a landing on top of the cliffs. “Do me a favor and stay out of trouble for a bit, now, alright?” he asked. “I need to go ask Mom if she and Cloudjumper can let Tohar know to keep an eye out for that headache that just left.”

His artificial wings unfurling, Hiccup spread them and took off, leaving Toothless feeling slightly amiss still over the recent events.

<Hey, things turned out fine this time, no need to worry,> Amethyst aid softly, sidling up next to the male.

<So says the one who blew up when Eret appeared the second time,> Toothless snapped, before realizing what he’d said and dropping his ears further in guilt.

Amethyst huffed in response. <Yeah, so I’m not perfect, but come on. We’re all a bit tense, and for good reason, but we can let out a breath now.>

<Yes, but that doesn’t make dealing with the tension any easier,> Toothless returned, glancing at her solemnly.

Amethyst nodded, before giving her counterpart a knowing smile. <True, but I can think of a couple of things that might make it a little more bearable, at least for the two of us,> she said cryptically. <Follow me.>

She too now turned and took to the air, hovering as she waited for Toothless to follow. Toothless of course didn’t have a clue what to make of this new development, or Amethyst’s tone, but he was now intrigued, and so spread his wings to follow, the pair of them disappearing over the village and up into the mountains of Berk.

On the cliff by his mother, Hiccup paused in his talk as he eyed the two Night Furies making themselves scarce. Call it a hunch, but he couldn’t help but grin; he was certain he knew exactly what Amethyst had in mind.


	40. Awakening

_It never happens quickly_

_A whisper in the dark_

_Slow return from winter’s hold_

_A hidden, kindled spark_

_It springs upon the barren ground_

_A breakthrough flower’s bloom_

_A touch of gold in grey beside_

_A beam within the gloom_

_It’s hope within the somber hour_

_A breath to quickly take_

_Heed the murmur from on high_

_When it softly speaks “Awake”_

Bittersweet happiness and somber silence were competing for dominance.

They had all hoped that he would be awake by that day, but that hope was fading, looking more and more remote as the minutes, and then hours, ticked by.

March Fourth! The response had been huge when the date was discovered, and the hospital room was now filled with cards, balloons, letters from well-wishers, and of course as many of Hawken’s family and friends as could be possibly fit into the space (most of the Descendants, the riders, his family, Sarah, Leighton etc.). But, even now, the young man still lay unconscious on the bed, sleeping away his twenty-first birthday.

“It’s been more than two months now,” Hiccup muttered glumly, leaning back against his chair in a dejected huff. “He’s missing his own birthday, and one of the major milestones, where’s the good in that?”

“It’s not something we can control, unfortunately,” Denise replied from nearby. “The doctors said he’s nearly recovered, so he could wake up any day now, but if he needs to rest still, he can rest.” Looking toward her son, a wistful smile appeared. “He’s not going to be happy that he lost any more weight over this debacle though; complained enough that he was thin before."

This got Hiccup to chuckle; the ability to pack on pounds by morphing notwithstanding, Hawken had always been a little put out that even his sister outweighed him, though he’d never deny being beanpole thin had advantages too. “Yeah, he was always annoyed even I weighed more than he did, normally. And he’s the older one too.”

“Only by three days,” Astrid remarked, leaning into the conversation. “Hey, he’s on the verge of being able to wake up, maybe that’ll end up being his birthday present to you. There’s got to be some good irony in that, right?”

“Oh, and it’ll happen too I’d bet. He’d do it just to spite me.”

An amused but peaceful silence fell, punctuated only by hospital personnel rattling carts past the door, before Hiccup spoke again. “Hey, Feren, been meaning to ask: how’s the dealing with all the donations been going?”

The Macawnivore lifted his head up to regard the Viking, before letting out a heavy sigh. “I was not meant to be an accountant,” he grumbled, before smiling. “We’ve raked in nearly a million dollars just in personal gifts alone, never mind awards and grants for what we all did, or what Hawken did on his own, and this is after our agreed amount for restoration of New York. But, so far we’ve found good use for it all. Uh, let’s see…”

The big cat turned, paw morphing so he could pull a slip of paper out of the pack he had strapped around his middle. “We gave around $200,000 to the local charities around here –our fellowships might be finally looking into locating a proper facility thanks to that- uh, another hundred grand to the VFW establishments and other affairs, and we might up that considering all they deserve, and most of the rest has been going to various charity funds, conservation projects that were suggested, and...oh yeah, couple of research initiatives. Embron and Twintail kept a portion though; I’m sure they talked to you all about their little project?”

Hiccup nodded. “Yeah, introducing the world’s new generation to dragons. Wow, sounded cheesier how I said it. But, uh, other than themselves they never mentioned who they intended to actually get to help out with that.”

“They’re still working out the details themselves is probably why. I know they were planning on involving Teshra, since she’s small and, eh, ‘cuddly’ when she wants to be.”

“Hey!” came a protest from somewhere else in the building, drawing chuckles.

“Oh, reminds me too, what about that TV series idea that Hawken had floated around a while back?” Camicazi queried. The blonde was lounging in a cushion chair at the far end of the room, fiddling with some new sharp object she and Holly (who was ticked about having to be in school at the time) had both become enamored with as Sarah watched nearby. “I haven’t heard anything about that recently, though I know the fiascos recently are a good excuse for that, and was wondering if an attempt was actually going to be made for moving forward on that.”

“Actually, that was an announcement I was going to make today, though I was hoping Hawken would be awake for it,” Zipeau replied. He pulled out a flyer, and passed it around. As Hiccup took it and looked it over, he smirked; there they all were, full outfits on and in stylish poses, faint images of the adventures they’d had in the background mixed with the symbols that had come to represent them.

“The idea was taken up immediately by several companies when it was pitched,” the Stenonychosaurus continued, “in a sort of joint agreement. And, the first episode is intended to air tonight. I’m amazed Holly didn’t spill it since the advertising is everywhere, or that you didn’t pick up already, but since you’ve been mostly on Berk or here I guess I can’t be surprised. What with recent events though, and the huge following DreamWorks already had with How to Train Your Dragon and its subsequent parts, viewing is expected to _start_ off in the tens of millions already.”

He grinned. “A lot of people really want to know the origins of the dragon man and why the rest of us exist, what a surprise there. So, as if we needed it we’re about to be even more famous than we already are.”

Several of the teens around the room cheered jokingly, while Hiccup, Ember, and Astrid simply shook their heads in amusement.

“Well, I guess we all know what we’re doing tonight, huh?” Hiccup chuckled, gesturing to the currently black TV screen that hung from one corner of the room.

Through all this, no one noticed the slight fluttering of Hawken’s eyelids over on the bed, open for only a moment before he drifted into sleep again.

* * *

Other than that brief snippet of conversation I awoke to catch on my birthday, Hiccup was completely right: the first time my eyes opened, and stayed that way, was midday on the seventh, his own birthday. Up to that point, I had experienced drifting, fleeting memories, strange dreams, and…an encounter that I’m afraid will be kept with me alone, lest its importance be lost. What I will say: none of us ever are alone.

When my eyes finally were released from under heavy lids, they did so to the sound of someone singing off to one side of my bed. I recognized the faint music playing from the MP3, and the voice of the singer, and smiled.

“And though it’s pouring down I see you through the clouds, shining on my faaace!” Astrid sang softly as she fiddled with her axe, tightening straps and checking it over as she smiled and bounced slightly to the tune in her ears. “Like sunlight burning at midnight, making my life something so beautiful, beautiful! Mercy reach in to save me, all that I need, something so beautiful, beautiful! I have come undone, but I have just beguuuun, changing by your graaaaaaaaace!”

“Good taste in music and a good voice; you should try singing professionally sometime,” I said jovially, if softly.

Astrid shrugged. “Eh, just a side hobby; I like to sing songs in my downtime every now and then, but not something I need everyone hearing,” she replied, still looking at her axe. “Plus, it keeps me busy instead of thinking about…..”

I watched as it finally clicked: Astrid trailed off and froze, her eyes widening, and she went slack-jawed as she turned to look at me. “H-Hawken?!” she exclaimed in a half-whisper, and it took all of what little energy I had not to start laughing.

Instead, I settled for a half-sarcastic lidded smirk. “No, no, this is the _other_ guy who got knocked out while neutralizing a supervolcano.”

A new smile began to form on Astrid’s face, before it turned to a look of ecstatic excitement and she leapt up, axe clanging to the floor as she first took two steps in my direction, froze, and then bolted to the door of the room, jerking it open and sticking her head out.

“GUYS, HE’S AWAKE!” she shouted. “He’s finally awake!”

A chorus of cheers and roars echoed after her, the unmistakable sounds of thundering foot- and paw-steps pounding through the hallways outside. Having made the announcement, Astrid ran back over to my bed, placing a hand on my shoulder before giving in to a full-on hug. Then, she quickly stepped out of the way.

Amethyst was the first through the door, bounding through with a toothless smile on and her tongue practically hanging out of her mouth like a joyous dog as she ran up to me and slathered me in a lick, Hiccup and Toothless close behind her (though thankfully only one of them gave me the same sloppy greeting; Hiccup’s right, it doesn’t wash off easy either).

“Thank God you’re awake!” Amethyst exclaimed, leaning in again and giving me a second slimy lick as she wriggled in place. “You died for like ten minutes when we brought you here, Shen tried to kill you, and then you stayed out for two months and dragon hunters came to Berk -!”

“Okay, okay, take a breath Amethyst,” Hiccup laughed, turning to me with an elated smile. “You and Toothless soaked him, and I’m sure neither he nor the nurses will be happy about cleaning that off.” With another chuckle he leaned forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I might have hugged you too admittedly, but they kind of ruined that,” he joked. “Yeah, a lot happened while you were out, but it’s good to see you back in the world of the living, Brother.”

I grinned. “Well, I think I’m here to stay this time around. I did manage to catch a sliver of what you were saying on my birthday, by the way”-

“Of course you did,” Astrid chuckled, interrupting me (not that I minded).

“-but other than that, I’m afraid I completely missed”-

“HAWKEN!!”

Teshra was the next to come flying (literally) into the room, hurtling toward me with her front legs spread wide. I winced, preparing for the collision, before Astrid caught the scaly bullet midair and averted disaster as she wrangled the rambunctious Terror.

“Whoa, hey, Teshra!” she reprimanded. “He just woke up, don’t go knocking him out again!” When the little dragon calmed a bit, the blonde carefully set her down on the bed, and Teshra immediately scrambled forward to hug me tightly anyway as Sasha, Kingsley, and Jake appeared at the door and entered in a more level-headed fashion, others soon behind them.

“Heh-hey, yeah, I’m glad to see you guys too,” I laughed, hugging Teshra back somewhat weakly before stretching out to grab everyone that I could reach to pull them into the embrace. “Come on, everybody in then; things are going to be okay right?”

“Definitely now,” Kingsley chuckled, he and Jake wrapping themselves around the bed. “We needed you to wake up too, as we just got word: Ruffnut’s pregnant.”

It took several seconds for that statement to sink in, and then several more for the implications to follow. Then I let everyone go and fell back into the bed, laughing so hard I started wheezing.

“Oh, Yah preserve us, one of the twins is having a kid!” I exclaimed with a guffaw once I could speak again. “Anyone succeed in keeping her out of their shenanigans for the sake of the baby yet?”

“It’s Ruffnut,” Toothless replied. “I don’t think even Mysteel chains could hold her down forever.”

“And, speaking of such things,” Amethyst suddenly spoke up in a softer voice, “uh, Hawken…well, only Toothless knows this so far but…”

She trailed off, before clearing her throat and looking at me directly. A short series of rumbles and croons followed, but nothing I recognized as words.

“Uh, Amethyst,” I began slowly, “are you actually saying something, or just rambling noises there?”

The female Night Fury quirked an eyebrow in concern at my comment, before repeating the same series of sounds. My expression stayed perplexed however, and I glanced at Hiccup, who was looking as Amethyst with very wide, shocked eyes.

“She…she s-said she’s gravid as well,” he said softly. “You didn’t understand her?”

At first, my heart swelled. Amethyst was gravid, and that meant there would be Night Fury eggs at some near point! Baby Night Furies, the first in decades!

But then, my mind returned to the fact that I had very clearly not understood Dragonese in that moment, and the memory of the words of my last prayer returned to me.

_“Now let me give it back so that I can protect my family, and let the world live.”_

Slowly, I looked down and turned my arm over as everyone watched in silence, uncovering the sleeve that draped loosely over it. Below my wrist, where for so long there had been the permanent pattern of scales etched onto me, now only bare, clear skin stared back. The only marks present were the last shadows of my healing bruises.

“In…In order to actually stop the eruption and the storms, it took a lot more than what I could do on my own,” I whispered quietly, tears beginning to well up. “I couldn’t shut it down. I…I gave up the gifts I had to make sure everyone else would survive. I-I can’t understand Dragonese; my family, Toothless, Stormfly, and Orha are the only ones I can talk with now. I won’t be able…I won’t be able to fly, I can’t heal, none of the abilities I had before. This…this is it. It’s over.”

“Oh, Hawken,” Astrid said first, sitting on the bed’s edge and leaning toward me. That caused the floodgates to break as the rest followed, surrounding me in a comforting embrace that, while reassuring in a small bit, wouldn’t change what had had to be done. I started crying, and many of them joined with me.

Through the tears though I forced myself to smile, slowly turning my head to look at each of them.

“I did it for you guys, all of you,” I choked, trying not to break into sobs again, “and I still have you. We’ll be okay; I still have you, my family. We…we’ll be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Setting up conditions for the next book here...yes, I made Ruff have a kid, and we'll get to see how that turns out later. As for my character's new development...well, more on that to come. There are a few lessons to be learned in both gain and loss.


	41. Incomplete

_But isn’t it beautiful,_

_The way we fall apart?_

_It’s magical and tragic all the ways we break our hearts._

_So unpredictable,_

_We’re comfortably miserable._

_We think we’re invincible_

_Completely unbreakable_

_And maybe we are._

_But isn’t it beautiful,_

_The way we fall apart?_

_~We As Human: We Fall Apart_

It was another two full days before the hospital finally deemed me well enough to be released, and I’d become jittery wanting to finally just leave the place (after so long used to being able to heal on command, it had become truly infuriating having to wait around for my strength to return).

In that time, we all also discovered one small, bittersweet remnant of what I’d once been able to do. My eyes, always unusual in having been able to change to a various range of hues, had retained the enhanced version of that that had come with the other abilities; where once my normal range of moods could span colors of blue, green, and gray, now I still possessed spectra of yellow, orange, violet, and other hues.

That was the sole trace however; nothing else returned, not even my ability to speak with Thorn, Fireworm, or the other dragons.

I was driven home for the first time in years, and upon my arrival Hiccup immediately got to work building me a pair of wings like those he had made for himself and his mother. In the meantime, he handed me a half dozen different saddles so that I could still ride dragons, like Amethyst or Embron.

We all knew, though, it would never quite manage to measure to the free range I’d once had in the air. The village celebrated my return, but even that retained a somber undertone, as word spread rapidly that I no longer had the skills I once did. Luckily, for perhaps the only time they ever managed it, the Vikings of Berk hid their sympathetic looks so as to try not to dampen my mood any further.

Amethyst sensed the cloud that hung over my head too, and if she wasn’t with Toothless or preparing a nest in their new shared side building on Hiccup’s house, then she stuck to my side like glue (sometimes too close, but we’ll get to that later). The companionship definitely helped though, so I held to the fact that what I’d sacrificed had done the job I’d intended, and I tried to focus on the things I could still do, the skills I’d had even before I’d ever stumbled into Hiccup’s world. Once strength had returned enough I started practicing fencing with Hiccup again, and I tended to my hobbies (dutifully cared for by Zipeau and Fishlegs while I’d been out), and my mind calmed for a while.

* * *

<I know I probably shouldn’t, but I know also I’m going to worry over him one way or another.>

<No, you probably shouldn’t, and he’ll blow up over that more than anything else too. But, I know how you feel Amethyst; we’re all watching him even if he can’t tell anymore.>

The female Night Fury glanced at the Nightmare next to her with a smile of thanks for his understanding. They both lay up on the high ridge above the village, looking down as Hiccup and Hawken wandered through the streets, talking and joking and for a moment acting as if nothing whatsoever had changed. The dragons though knew their brother, and knew that if he found something to really upset him he would darken for days; they and the other Descendants had almost upon the moment he’d awoken silently agreed they’d be watching out for him to prevent that from sticking.

<What if he really falls though?> Amethyst asked. <I mean, he’s not typically that kind of person but everyone has a limit. We may be dragons and he might not have matching strength anymore but you still can only pin him for so long before he worms away.>

Embron huffed, before a smile formed on his muzzle. <You had to get it from somewhere, right? That stubborn attitude? I’m sure if it comes down to keeping Hawken safe from himself you’ll think of something to at least match his will; you’ve always been most like him in that manner.>

Amethyst’s gaze drifted off over the village again, a myriad thoughts rushing or drifting through her head at various speeds. <Yeah,> she agreed, <but you never know. At least I know Hiccup and Toothless will back me if I need help dealing with him.>

<The whole village and his family will. I think he’s kind of forgetting this but he’s not important because he had gifts.>

That thought definitely struck home, and Amethyst looked up to Embron. <Remind him of that every chance you get,> she said. <Hey, think it would help him if I brought him to that session you’re having soon? I know he doesn’t like kids but he can’t deny to us that he likes attention; maybe it would be good for him.>

The Nightmare nodded. <I agree. Annoying they may be sometimes, kids are better at telling someone what they need to know.>

<Or what is just true, no filter on those mouths,> Amethyst chuckled, drawing both of them into laughter.

* * *

A few days later Amethyst and I found ourselves heading downtown; I’m not sure how I let her talk me into this, I was never a crowds (or kids) person, but there I was, heading to help interact. Embron and Twintail had filled me in on the endeavor they were attempting, and with the recent release Zipeau had helped facilitate and finalize of our history in a visual form, a great deal of interest had mounted across the nation (and beyond) in actually getting the chance to meet us or one of the dragons, even more so than the result of the war had brought on.

In response, every one of the sessions the two Descendants had held were booked to the maximum (as was every scheduled one in the foreseeable future), and the facility they had rented out was packed with hundreds of children and their parents, as well as a fair number of young adults. This time, Embron and Twintail had also hired on several volunteer dragons and riders to be present, so when we first entered I simply moved to sit back and watch, content to stay mostly out of sight.

That didn’t last long though, what with my walking in wearing my signature coat and with one of the only two Night Furies in existence. For a good fifteen minutes we became the center of the room’s attention despite Embron’s attempts to regain proper control of the situation.

I caught his eye a few times, and the frustration that I knew personally so well now showing on his face made me burst out laughing, only fueling his expression; dealing with excitable children, especially when once-mythical creatures were involved, is a very different ball game altogether from debating and outmaneuvering hot-headed politicians (something the Nightmare now had decent experience in).

Then the question we were all hoping to avoid came: a young boy with bright blond hair and dressed in a dark Night Fury shirt came up to me, eyes full of classic childish excitement and wonder, and asked, “Mr. Hawken sir, can you show us how you turn into a dragon?”

A chorus of agreeing cheers echoed him, the room filling with even more enthusiasm, but at the same time my emotions took a nose-dive at the request. I looked around the room, hundreds of wide eyes wanting to see, hear learn, and they were going to be disappointed by something I could no longer give.

“I…I’m afraid, I can’t anymore,” I said quietly, and the room slowly silenced as all those wonder-filled expressions fell, only making me feel worse myself. “I gave up my gifts, to save the rest of you, and my family,” I explained in a near-whisper. “I can’t turn into a dragon or any of the other things I could do. I…”

I tried to smile, but my attempt failed miserably. Suddenly at a loss for words, I instead shook my head, and turned for the door. “Excuse me; I think I need a bit of air.”

I barely heard Amethyst tell Embron to try and continue without us behind me, before she came bounding after my retreating form.

“Hawken, wait!” she called as I pushed the door open, stepping out onto the sidewalk outside the exhibition hall. I didn’t wait, but continued walking as she came up next to me, holding pace. “Hey, you okay?” she asked carefully, eyes wide with worry as she looked over at me.

I sighed. “No, not really,” I said flatly. “I…I just need to take a walk for a while, have some time to think by myself, okay?” I slowed, and turned to her, expression empty. “I haven’t been alone since I woke up in the hospital, even when I was just sitting above the docks in the village one of you was watching somewhere. And don’t deny it either, I know you guys. I need some time, okay? Go help Embron and the others, you can come look for me in an hour or two. You know how to find me.”

Amethyst’s violet-edged green eyes flickered and dilated as her conflicted thoughts revealed themselves, battling for a decision as she tried to push away my pointedly calling her and the others out on spying on me. She definitely did not like the idea of me wandering alone, but everyone knows that feeling of needing solitary time too.

Finally, those eyes closed and she let out a long, slow sigh, bowing her head. “Alright, I’ll let you be for a while,” she acquiesced. “Just…please don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“I promise,” I assured.

Amethyst nodded and then, haltingly, turned to slowly walk back into the building. I, meanwhile, let out another sigh and began to meander down the sidewalk.

* * *

I ended up on the trail that wound along the river nearby, heading to the north of the city as I meandered, staring at the cold winter water and the occasional streamside flower just starting to open with the first hints of spring.

The weather had stayed fairly decent, so the day was nearly cloudless, temperatures not quite warm but not cold either (and treating me to the first time in years where my Myscale coat was actually needed for warmth). There was almost no one else on the path at that time either, letting me be alone to process my thoughts as well, a small blessing.

I felt lost, not physically but instead mentally, unsure of what I was supposed to do now. With the gifts that I’d had now gone, it would fall to everyone else to be the world’s protectors and advocates, the miracle makes and healers. Me, I was just an average, in-the-way person again. And, I realized as I watched cars drive by on a distant roadway, I had no way of ensuring that I was going to be heard, or even left alone when necessary, anymore if situations went downhill.

Downhill they went too, soon enough.

“Hey Dragonfart!”

I jerked in surprise at someone speaking from so close without my noticing (though it shouldn’t have come as a surprise; I was distracted enough not even my ever-present sense of others around me was reaching my mind), before my eyes narrowed at the slight and I turned around.

I wasn’t ready for the punch that came flying toward my face.

Pain exploded across my cheek and nose, and I saw stars for a moment, staggering backward before my vision cleared enough to see who had hit me.

“Not such a big shot now that you don’t have your precious powers, huh?” Seth growled, a pair of his friends flanking him. “All that show before and now you’re as much of a loser as any other nerd, except you’ve got all that crap you did on your head now. Welcome back to earth.” He took another swing at me, one that I dodged.

“What the hell are you going on about Seth?” I hissed, feeling as if I should have been growing scales at that moment but remaining the same as before, unprotected.

Seth snorted. “Oh, don’t act like you know nothing, Hawken,” he spat. “You made me into a laughingstock around the school with that little show of yours a couple years ago; no one ever took me seriously, hell I couldn’t even confront you about it because if you weren’t busy sucking up to the professors you were off gallivanting around with your dragons buddies causing trouble that you eventually dragged here. Then, the only thing I had was the degree I should have been graduating this year with, which you also ruined for me when you lured that lunatic to the university! An entire semester and summer now wasted because they have to rebuild so many of the buildings, and the rest of us? Sucks to be us because we’ve got nowhere else to go in the meantime and nothing we can get back out of it!”

“So you’re angry about unfortunate circumstance and you decided to blame it on me because I just happen to be around, and you dislike me, _and_ you need something to take your issues out on, is that it?” I snapped back, now starting to grow livid. It was bad enough I had been in a terrible mood before, and now I had someone with a sore spot who was pushing his luck. How on earth had he even managed to find me here?

“You should be thankful you’re not dead right now!” I continued. “Yes, Pitch attacked the school because it was a target that I had come to defend, but had I not come to save your and everyone else’s asses you would be Bioraptor meat, not just a grumpy jerk displaced by conflict; welcome to the world of the war refugee. Want something else to chew on? It might have happened eventually anyway even if I never had gifts, and then I wouldn’t have been here to stop the disaster Malin was going to freeze the earth itself over with. But because you can’t get over the fact that things are unfortunate sometimes you take it out on me because I lost my abilities and you thought I was an easier target! You’re an idiot!”

I stalked up to Seth, one hand on the hilt of the sword he couldn’t see under my coat. “Shut your mouth, Seth,” I growled. “I lost my gifts because I gave them up so everyone wouldn’t either be frozen by the storm or wiped out by the Yellowstone volcano, both of which I’m sure you heard about. I gave up the thing that helped me save lives, that set up opportunity for me to develop some of the deepest bonds I’ve ever been able to have with friends and family, for seven billion people I’ve never met. And thanks to a handful of jerks like you, I have to look back and wonder if I did the right thing, or if I should have just left this world with my family and let this place freeze over.”

Seth’s mouth twitched, clearly not happy at being talked back to or that he couldn’t refute my argument, and he glanced at his friends. “Grab him, hold him down,” he ordered. They both moved forward to grab my shoulders, but at the same time I stepped back and whipped out the carved Mysteel sword I’d been holding, slicing it in an arc and holding them back.

“I may not be as fast as I once was, might not be able to fly and make fire anymore, but I knew well enough how to handle a sword even before these past four years occurred,” I snarled, “let alone after all the practice I’ve had since. You want to end up literally half the man you currently are right now?” Because I was ticked, to prove my point I drew the tip of the sword across a nearby dead tree, carving deep into the hard wood without any effort.

The taller of Seth’s two buddies, a shady blond-haired young man in a gray hooded sweatshirt, shrugged and pulled out a gun from the waistband of his jeans. “A sword ain’t faster than a bullet,” he toned, aiming the barrel at my chest.

I stared straight back, trying not to flinch as the atmosphere around us changed drastically again. “True, but you’d have to ensure the first shot kills me outright,” I drawled. “Most of what I’m wearing is bulletproof to the point I won’t even feel it, and,” I reached into my pocket, pulling out a scarlet gemstone, “if I press this all it will do is ricochet back at you.” I shrugged and lowered my sword. “But that’s still the least of your worries.”

Taking out frustrations or exacting a perceived revenge is apparently one thing though, but murder is entirely another case altogether, proven as Seth moved to hold his hands up between the two of us. “Wait, wait, hold on Jeff, I wanted him to know how it feels, not kill him! You want us to end up in prison?!”

I snorted. “You would have if you beat me up anyway. Some lesson though, considering I’m not the one with a pissed of Night Fury breathing down my neck.”

All three of them turned and nearly backpedaled into me at my words. Amethyst had shown up, no doubt sensing something wrong earlier when Seth had punched me, and she was truly furious, scales and nostrils glowing that intense violet color she held as sparks and streamers jumped between her spinal crests.

“Drop the gun and I’ll let you walk away,” she growled, her words undertoned with a growl I could no longer master. When Jeff didn’t move, she stepped forward with a flare of her wings and shrieked, “NOW!!”

The roar echoed off the surrounding landscape, and wisely Jeff’s trembling hands let go of the gun. Amethyst fired, vaporizing the weapon and bullets within, causing the three to shriek in shock at the explosion at their feet, before they fixed the Night Fury with expressions of grave concern.

“Touch my brother again and you won’t last the night,” Amethyst growled. “I’ll tear you limb from limb and I’m not the only one willing to kill for him, you got that?”

They nodded meekly, and Amethyst jerked her head off down the path. “Now run,” she ordered, “before I change my mind and decide to leave you with a permanent reminder. Go!”

They didn’t waste any time, all three of them skedaddling away as quickly as they could, not looking back once. As soon as they were out of sight, I sighed and sank to the ground, sword falling from my hands as tears welled in my eyes.

“Figures, classic jerks; stand up against someone they see as weaker than them but too cowardly to face anything else, nothing more than that,” Amethyst rumbled, before noticing the water starting to streak my face. As the glow on her back dulled and her crests folded back together she knelt down and coiled around me, eyes turning soft with worry as her tail draped over my lap and her head came to my side.

“Hawken, just forget what they said and listen to me,” she said softly but sternly. “You’ve done nothing wrong, and they’re just angry that everything was messed up by someone else they can’t get to and they have no right to take it out on”-

“Would it have been better if I had died after what I did?” I interrupted, the tears falling freely as sobs began to shake me. “Would it have been better if everyone didn’t have me to carry around now? I’m useless, and I’m a target, a burden to you all. I should have died!”

Amethyst’s eyes widened in shock, before pain ran through her expression that then morphed to a fearful anger. “No, don’t you dare start talking like that!” she snapped. “You are not useless, you are not dead weight, no one should ever say even close to as much, you hear me? Hell, do you think we all would have fought tooth and nail to keep you alive in those first few days you were out if we thought you weren’t worth saving?! We need you; damn the blasted gifts and all we need YOU!”

She curled in tighter, dragging me into a sort of sideways embrace with her tail. “Hawken, I’ve only actually known you, my own kin, for less than a year; I cannot imagine what life would be like without you. Do you have any idea how much more losing you would impact Denise, or Sam, or Holly? Or what about everyone on Berk? My God, the village would fall apart now if we lost you outright with how much they’ve come to love you!” She turned her head so that I had to look straight at her, eyes full of abject sincerity.

“Don’t you ever think you’re worthless Hawken,” she ordered. “You always were more than your gifts, everything else is certainly why you got them in the first place, and it came out in your humor, your creativity, your ideas, the way you manage to give everyone a second chance even when you completely hate them on the inside, the way you cared so much for everyone around you that you nearly gave up everything, your own life, for them! There is not a single greater worth that I can think of than a soul like that, and if you don’t believe me, read your Bible again because Yahweh said the same thing. You’re falling apart right now, we understand that, and everyone does at some point, but you are loved, and you will be held together.”

The dam broke, and sobs ran over me fully as I turned and hugged Amethyst, burying my face in her side as the frustrations I had been holding in for so many days finally began to break down. The Night Fury, for her part, stayed motionless, letting me release my emotions as she waited patiently, being a strength that I hadn’t realized I needed at that time. Several minutes went by as I cried, and she held me carefully as a comfort.

Eventually, I loosened my hold and sat back, blinking away the last of the tears as I turned to look at Amethyst again.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. She simply nodded, and gave a slight smile.

“You’re welcome. And I mean it, you mean a lot to everyone just as you are.”

I nodded slowly, before letting out a sigh of a different kind as I felt a weight leave my shoulders, and reached down to grab my sword to put it back in its scabbard. “Well,” I began, “I guess that’s enough of the crying by the river. What do you say about heading home?”

Amethyst chuckled as she stood up, shaking out her wings before leaning down to give me an easy means to climb on. “Good idea,” she agreed. “Besides, I think you gave me a full new layer of salt on my scales that I need to go wash off now.”

She grinned as I started laughing despite myself, before spreading her wings once I was in place and taking to the skies again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do we appreciate who we are, if we only seek what we are not or are without?


	42. Rebirth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning: some very awkward Toothless antics incoming.

_What once was shall be again_

_The lesson we all forbear_

_Cycles and circles are life’s design_

_What ends also there begins_

_Calamity has passed_

_Its return will soon be_

_But so too were wonders once known_

_That here they shall awake from dreams_

_I stumbled in my haste, tripping over the burning planks of shattered houses as I ran through the neighborhood, racing to reach my own home before it was too late. The ground beneath me seemed to grab hold of my feet however, my path ahead stretching on forever. Behind me, the screams and growls of unnatural abominations echoed in painful howls, clashing with matched growls and roars of enraged dragons, and the war cries and yells of pain and grief of people, both Vikings that I knew and strangers that I did not._

_Off to my side, an agonized scream sounded, and Camicazi staggered, sliding off of Stormfly with a charred spear embedded in her chest. Her eyes caught mine for a split second as she hit ground, and through the pain an urging expression appeared._

_“Go!” she whispered, too weak now to shout it. I wanted to stop, to help her up, but my feet would not slow, so I kept running instead, even as in front of me another familiar dragon, this one a scarred Zippleback, crashed into the street. Ruff and Tuff leapt from their saddles, fires in their eyes (both emotion and reflected) as they charged past me to take revenge and disappeared into the smoke._

_I skidded around Barfbelch and turned down my own street, running for the house. Holly and Nara came bolting up out of the back yard into the boiling sky, blades and spikes flying from them, but before anyone else appeared a sickening apparition swept by, blanketing my home in a twisted flame._

_“No!!” I screamed, leaping forward desperately to do something despite knowing I could not stop it, but then finding myself suddenly held down firmly to the ground by a dark figure wielding a strange, sharp-pronged instrument that they twisted around my neck._

_“Watch it burn,” it said with a scratchy chuckle, and suddenly the light shifted, showing Jonathan Malin as the one standing above me, grinning madly down at his capture. Before I could react, he removed the weapon from my chest, lifted it high, and drove it down with a revolting crunch._

_“Say goodbye!”_

_“MOOOMMM!!!”_

I jolted awake, breathing hard and sweating bullets, to find a faint light beginning to seep into my room, and moments later I found myself suddenly surrounded by loops of soft, warm scales.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay Hawken,” Kingsley soothed quietly, wrapping tighter around me in his version of a hug as he placed his head under my chin.

I sat frozen for a moment, the images still flashing in my mind, before they began to fade shakily away and I shook my head, letting out a jittery breath and laying a hand on the snake’s side. “Yeah, I know,” I said, “just…just another nightmare.”

“Well, we’re here for you so don’t worry, okay?” Amethyst reassured, also setting herself up behind me as Sasha padded over, draping his head onto my shoulder. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Will they ever stop?” the tiger asked softly, worriedly.

I shrugged in response, unable to give anything more concrete. “Who knows?” I admitted sadly. “They may fade over time, but I doubt I’m ever going to escape them. But, everyone is different.” I smiled wistfully, before wincing. “Okay, you can loosen up Kingsley, not too easy to relax in a killer hug.”

“Oh, sorry.”

As he uncoiled, letting me breathe again, I heard a gasp from Sasha over my shoulder. I turned my head to look at him, and followed his rapidly blinking, now confused gaze down to the back of my bare arm. “What? What’s wrong?” I asked, a different concern coming up thinking perhaps someone’s claws or a scale edges had caught me without my noticing.

Sasha shook his head, letting out a sigh as he glanced down again. “I…never mind, I think I just need to clear the sleep from my eyes,” he excused. “I’m seeing things; I could have sworn I saw scales on your arm again.”

“Yeah, I doubt that,” Kingsley replied wistfully. “You probably just saw my scales.”

“Possibly, but last time I checked, your scales aren’t black and Amethyst is sitting against his back.”

At this, I turned my head again, looking at him oddly, but he only shrugged. “Like I said,” he grumbled, “I’m going back to sleep.”

And he did, plopping down on the pillow next to mine and nodding off immediately. I sighed and glanced at Amethyst instead then. “I think I’ll be fine,” I said, “you can move off my pillow now.”

The Night Fury nodded, slowly getting up. “Well, if you have any more moments, or if I think you shouldn’t be alone”-

“You try what you did a couple days ago again and we’ll have issues,” I warned. “I get the feeling today’s going to be a long one anyway.”

* * *

Later that morning found me slipping out of Amethyst’s saddle in front of the forge, walking in to find, unsurprisingly, Gobber, Hiccup, Toothless, and Ember already there, working away. Gobber looked up briefly from the bellows at my approach and spotted me, before going back to heating some manner of metallic object with a bit more of a smile on his face.

“Mornin’ Hawken!” he said cheerfully. “Come in to help?”

“Perhaps,” I said nonchalantly, walking over to where Hiccup was measuring out lengths of Myscale. “That depends though on if there’s actually anything for me to do anymore.”

“Eh, it’s been a slow mornin’ too. But, yer welcome te stick around so long as yer not in the way.”

“He can’t be in the way any more than you usually are,” Hiccup teased, earning an indignant huff and a hammer wave from the older smith.

“If you’re goin’ te make cracks about my weight ye can save ‘em,” Gobber growled suspiciously, giving his partner a pointed look.

Hiccup waved his hand in response. “No, no, just that we’re always under each other’s feet anyway. The forge has gotten bigger the past few years, but that doesn’t really mean much with four regular employees and whatever number of dragons there may be in here on any given day.”

“Well, I can’t help I’m not as nimble as you are anymore,” Gobber quipped.

Hiccup shook his head in amusement, and turned to me, holding up a pair of wide Myscale sheets. “I had thought I would have had these done by now for you,” he apologized, glancing out the door to where Toothless and Amethyst were now talking, going on about something in Dragonese. “Unfortunately, diplomatic duties have still been calling in addition to the usual repairs around the village. But, they’re coming along; I’ve managed to fit out a proper-sized wingspan and I’m working on the fitting for the control stone, just have to get all the parts together.”

He handed the setup to me, and I took it carefully, looking over the material that made up the wings. Just like my coat, it was made of mostly Night Fury Myscale, a blend of both Amethyst and Toothless’ scales so that it reflected in an iridescence of a mix of blues and purples over the black hue.

I gave a bittersweet smile; it would let me fly again, but nowhere near with the fluidity that a full dragon could maneuver. “Well, thank you Hiccup,” I said, “but don’t worry about deadlines. I appreciate it, but I know it won’t be the same either.”

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed. “But at least’s something.”

As I handed the setup back and Hiccup turned away, a new set of voices caught my attention, and I looked out the window behind the forge to spot Sasha and Teshra walking up one of the village paths, smirks on both their muzzles evident even from a distance.

<-never going to give it up on his own,> Sasha was half-whispering. <He’s too attached to that book of his so we’re not going to be able to just convince him to let us borrow it. It’s gonna have to be a grab-and-go this time.>

<Think Ruffnut will help like usual, or will she side with her hubby on this one?> Teshra queried back, to which Sasha only shrugged.

“Hey!” I shouted, startling both of them as they spotted me glaring out at them. “Leave Fishlegs’ notes alone or I’ll string you two up myself!”

Both of them looked like fish for a moment, mouths agape as they stared at me with unblinking eyes.

“Wait, you…you weren’t supposed to understand that!” Sasha finally exclaimed when he regained use of his tongue.

I rolled my eyes. “Well you weren’t exactly being exactly subtle with your conversation over there,” I shot back.

“But we were speaking in Dragonese!” Teshra whined. “You can’t understand Dragonese anymore!”

“Then you weren’t”- I began to say, before I stopped, eyes widening. I had thought I had just been hearing plain English, but after a moment of thinking over the words I’d heard, those had not been human syllables the two Descendants were speaking.

“Toothless!” I yelled suddenly, scrambling to the other side of the forge. The Night Fury jerked in surprise, he and Amethyst looking at me confusedly.

“What? What’d I do?” he asked worriedly.

“Nothing, just say something!” I urged.

He continued to look at me with a perplexed expression. “Uhhh…”

“Say something in Dragonese.”

Now the ears went down, and he scowled as if I’d said something truly ridiculous. <Alright, what is this supposed to prove?> he growled in exasperation, watching me like I’d lost it.

I heard him perfectly clearly, and a smile grew across my face. A moment later, I started giggling, before outright falling over laughing.

“Oh, great, now he’s really lost it,” Amethyst said worriedly. “Help me get him up, we need to get him examined…”

I shook my head, trying to stop the chuckles that now refused to go away. “No, no, it…ha ha ha!...I canehhehehe…I can understand you guys again!”

“WHAT?!” both dragons exclaimed, shortly before I heard an echo from Hiccup and Ember behind me.

I nodded vigorously. “I can understand Dragonese again!” I exclaimed. “I’m recognizing the language, I know what they’re saying! I can understand you guys!”

About ten seconds passed before everyone yelled in excitement and swarmed me, Ember grabbing me in a hug as the two Night Furies bounded up to me in enthusiasm.

“Ha ha ha! Lord thank you, Hawken this is great!” Hiccup exclaimed, opting to clap me on the shoulder rather than hug me like Ember did. “Apparently you didn’t lose everything permanently!”

I laughed. “Well, once you know a language I guess it’s possible for it to come back if you’re immersed enough, and I’d have rather continue flying, but at least I can still talk with all my friends again!”

“And bust Sasha and company when they’re trying to plan heists behind everyone’s backs,” Amethyst added, glancing off to the side as her expression darkened to where said tiger was starting to slink off with Teshra to do who knows what.

I caught his eye with a glare. “I’ll talk with you later,” I warned, before my expression softened and I looked back at the others. “But right now, I’m going to enjoy this. Where’s Spitfire? Haven’t been able to talk with him in months!”

* * *

Toothless was getting restless, pacing back and forth across the floor of the cove as he watched Hiccup fiddle with something the Viking hadn’t even agreed to show to the Night Fury. And Toothless knew about nearly everything Hiccup did or built; they were brothers after all, didn’t they let each other know about everything?

Oh, wait…

<Why do I need to be here again?> he finally blurted out, looking at Hiccup in exasperation.

Hiccup sighed, fidgeting even more. “Because I want at least someone here for support that I can trust not to blab,” he said. “Hawken said he’d try to show up, but something had him busy for a part of today so he couldn’t say when. This isn’t something I really want the rest of the gang knowing about beforehand either. And…and I don’t really want to sit here alone while I prepare this. It’s going to be a couple of hours before I actually asked Astrid to be here and”-

<Ohhh, I see,> Toothless interrupted suddenly, eyes widening in excitement and then narrowing with a touch of mischief. <Let me guess, you’re holding a ring, aren’t you?>

Hiccup stuttered and spluttered for a moment, before shutting his mouth firmly and lowering his head as he took a deep breath; no point keeping it secret from the Night Fury now.

“Alright, you win,” he relented. “Yes, it’s a ring. I thought it was an appropriate time; it’s early May, it’s finally getting nice and staying that way, and…I’m tired of waiting.”

<Well, it’s about time!>

The moment he said it Toothless realized he’d set himself in the firing line. Hiccup glanced up with indignance at the exclamation, before a smirk of his own appeared.

“About time?” he asked. “Me? How long was it before you even had the guts to admit you had feelings for Amethyst?”

<Please don’t start; I won’t say anything more today okay?>

“Or how long did it take for you guys to decide to actually be together?”

<Hiccup…>

“And oh, I recall that it wasn’t even you who actually initiated any of those events either, was it? It was Amethyst, the _girl_ who started everything off!”

<Hiccup, I’m warning you-!>

Hiccup raised a hand with one finger pointed up, and then paused for a moment. A sly look took over the former grin. “In fact,” he drawled, “a couple of months ago when you two disappeared into the mountains, it was also Amethyst who dragged you up there as well! I recall your clueless expression as you took off; I wasn’t that far away.”

<Stop, I mean it!>

“Oh, come on, you can’t be like that! All the times you poke fun at me; it’s a natural part of life too, and I’m sure you enjoyed yourself! You found a hidden cove somewhere, a nice, thick patch of grass, you two settled down and”-

<THAT’S IT!> Toothless barked, leaping up and into a pounce position. Hiccup’s eyes widened, and he dropped the ring box with his tools next to the rock he was sitting on as he took off in a run.

He didn’t get very far though, what with not having his wings with him this time, before Toothless tackled him to the ground. The Night Fury rolled him over so that he was looking up, and glared down at Hiccup. <You asked for it,> the dragon growled.

Hiccup groaned and squirmed. “Oh come on, please don’t sit on me again! Isn’t that getting a little bit old?>

<Yes it is; I’m not going to sit on you,> Toothless replied bluntly, before cracking his mouth open and sheathing his teeth.

Hiccup froze. “Toothless? W-what are you doing?”

Toothless paused, and a pointed grin formed. <Overhead one of Hawken and Fishlegs’ odd scientific conversations a while back; gave me an idea on how to deal with you.>

The memory of a conversation he’d had with Hawken the year before suddenly popped into Hiccup’s head, and a chill ran down his spine as one warning in particular rang out; he’d thought at the time Hawken was still mostly kidding, but it was clear the Night Fury holding him pinned was going to prove otherwise.

“Oh no, no God please Toothless don’t do that!”

The Night Fury ignored him now, leaning down instead with his mouth wide open.

“Toothless don’t! I swear”-

GLOMM!

“Mmmph!”

GULP!

* * *

I’d made it a point not to tell Hiccup what exactly it was that had kept me busy, because I’d also had an inkling of an idea what he wanted me for. If my suspicions were true, I wanted the day to be that much more exciting for everyone when both events were revealed.

It had been nearly a month since I had regained the capacity to understand (and later that afternoon as we’d discovered I could also again speak) Dragonese, but other than full voluntary control over my color-changing eyes once more, nothing else had come of it.

Then, the night before…the night before as I stepped into the shower, the water splashing against my skin produced an almost fiery sensation, and I glanced down at my left arm to find actual scales reappearing on my skin again, almost like Sasha had claimed he’d seen. They weren’t just any random scales either; the Menorah pattern centered in a swirling spiral that had been there for so long before resurfaced as I watched.

I’d barely been able to contain my ecstatic attitude afterward, saved in not having the discovery spilled that night only by the fact that Amethyst had chosen to stay with Toothless at Hiccup’s house that night for reasons I had yet to discover, and the other Descendants that usually lay about my bed were already zonked out. I had not been able to do anything then, but early the next morning one attempt while holed up in my room had flushed Night Fury scales across my body.

The gifts were returning, the reasons why I would not dare question, and now that I knew for certain it was time I let everyone else know.

However, as I approached the rim of the cove, the last thing that I expected to find was Toothless, sitting on his own by the pond with no skinny Viking in sight. Confused as to why Hiccup wasn’t there, I quietly climbed down the side of the cove wall, and approached the Night Fury.

“Hey Toothless!” I called out when I was close enough, and he suddenly jerked upright, clearly surprised to see me walking up behind him so close.

<Hawken!> he exclaimed. <Hi! I, uh…> he trailed off, looking as if I’d caught him with his paw in the proverbial cookie jar, out of place and guilty of something he shouldn’t have been doing.

I raised an eyebrow, before glancing around. “Something you want to tell me? Hiccup asked me to meet him here, and he didn’t indicate that he’d be going anyplace else. Have you seen him at all?”

<Seen him?> Toothless almost squeaked. <No, not _seen_ him for a little bit, uh…>

“Okay, might you have an idea where he….”

I trailed off, catching notice of two things almost at once. Stepping to one side, I bent down to pick up the small box holding the carefully cast Mysteel ring I knew Hiccup would never willingly have left lying on the ground, at least not for long. Inlaid with gold, small gems, and carved with Hebraic words of unity, it meant everything to him for its soon-to-be purpose and I had been the only one he’d revealed it to in order to get opinions.

The second thing I had noticed was Toothless himself, or more precisely his midsection, plumped up almost like he’d had a very, very filling meal. Suddenly, all the pieces fell together and revealed a picture I was most definitely not happy with.

Glaring at Toothless, I leaned down cautiously. “Hiccup?”

“I swear I am going to lock this dragon out of the house for a month!” came the no longer surprisingly muffled reply. “Hawken! Somehow, please, make him let me out of here before I vomit and make it worse for both of us!”

I groaned, stepping back for one second and pressing my fingers to my forehead, taking several deep breaths so I didn’t act rashly. “Oh, Lord preserve my patience and keep me from strangling this useless reptile!” I hissed not so quietly, shaking my head before glancing upward again, expression hardening further. “Toothless, the first thing I am going to say is that no matter how annoyed you might be with your brother, no matter what it was that he did, it is not appropriate to eat Hiccup as a punishment! I know I warned him before, but still!”

<What? It’s not like it’s going to hurt him, just shuts him up for a while!> Toothless tried to defend, despite knowing that I saw how physically uncomfortable he also looked right then. <He’s safe, out of danger, warm…>

“More like uncomfortably hot, slimy, about to throw up because it smells like week old fish in here,” Hiccup drawled snappishly in response.

<He started it!>

“I don’t care!” I yelled. “Not. Appropriate! Now let him out before I count to three or I will not only force you to spit him up but I will ensure you encounter the same experience, got it?”

Now it was Toothless’ turn to look incredulously at me. <What? How on earth could you possibly do that?> he retorted. <It’s not like you’re going to get Tohar or Jordan down here just to eat me or something.>

In response, my eyes shaded over an icy blue, followed by scales of a slightly darker shade flowing down my face.

Toothless’ eyes snapped open, and his posture slumped. <Suddenly I’m both really happy and terrified.>

“Good, you get the idea,” I quipped. “Now, as I said: One…t”-

<Okay, I’m sorry! Hold on a minute!>

Leaning over, Toothless gave a heave much like he did when he tried to share fish, only this time heavier and more forced; no doubt, he was not normally designed to store human-sized objects in his crop. Moments later, accompanied by a nauseating wet schlurp noise, Hiccup reappeared fully drenched in saliva, and unsurprisingly smelling like day-old fish that had been left out in the sun.

“If I _never_ experience that again it will be too soon,” he spat, literally, before making an attempt to stand up, only to slip in the puddle of spit that accompanied him. Instead, he resigned himself to lie on his back and turn to glare at Toothless. “What the heck were you thinking?!”

<That you pushed it and it was an effective means of dampening the sound,> Toothless replied, still apparently only the slightest bit remorseful about his actions despite the knowledge of my threat.

I rolled my eyes, before walking up to Hiccup. “Hey, if it’s any consolation, Toothless is not the first dragon to get this idea into his head,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s really reassuring; now there are other dragons that will chew on their riders for punishment,” Hiccup muttered, before pausing in his crawl away from the puddle and toward the pond (however cold it might have been it was still better than being soaked in dragon spit) to look up at me. “Wait a minute,” he said suspiciously, “are you meaning to tell me…?”

I nodded. “Yeah, unfortunately so. Though her motives that morning were to protect me rather than punish me, but I can’t say that the intention makes the experience any less disturbing.”

“Yeah well,” Hiccup grumbled, placing his hands on a rock and finally managing to stand up, “despite now knowing what you meant about her being ‘too close for comfort,’ I’m still partly wishing I had remembered your warning from last year, and also really wishing we’d learned a method for removing dragon spit from clothes.” He shot another, only slightly less icy glare toward Toothless, who returned with a smirk.

I chuckled, and held out my hand. “Tell you what, since we might be a little short on time with what I’m guessing you had planned”-

“Not anymore; this kind of ruined the mood for that idea,” Hiccup grumbled, waving me off.

Now I laughed. “Oh, not necessarily. I know a faster method to get you cleaned up and we can put this unfortunate encounter behind us, even make up for time. Give me your hand.”

Hiccup glanced at me suspiciously (no sane person should normally willingly touch someone who had just been inside a dragon after all), but reached for my hand anyway.

The moment contact was made, a ripple of energy flowed across his hands and then down his arms, burning away the sticky mess as it went and leaving everything else spotless behind.

Hiccup stood there, eyes slowly widening as he processed what had just happened, never mind the fact that he was suddenly clean and dry again without the bath he intended to take before. “What…the…” he sputtered, glancing between my hands and face as it started to click. “You…you were just able to...”

“Yeah, it’s what kept me busy this morning,” I replied with a grin. “I’ve got a big announcement for everyone; however, I think there’s a different announcement you were planning to prepare for at the moment that I think is a far more celebratory occasion.” I held out the ring box that I was still holding, and Hiccup took it as his own genuine smile returned.

“Or, more precisely, _you_ should prepare it, mostly,” I said, grinning darkly as I pulled a small bottle out of my pocket and turned toward Toothless. “I, on the other hand…”

<Oh no, no, no no no no no I’m sorry alright?!> the dragon yelped, backing up and turning to take off. He no longer had a speed advantage on me though, so before he could even squat down to leap I landed in front of him, wrapping an arm around his neck and with the other applying one drop of the oil in the bottle to his nose.

<AAAUUGHH!! Oh, ugh, why?! Anything but geranium, why?! Eeeccchhhh!>

“Because you ate Hiccup, however temporary it may have been. And besides, geranium oil is good for you!”

<No it’s not, it just stinks!!>

* * *

Two hours later Astrid arrived on Thorn, gliding down into a cove that now looked very, very different.

“Alright Hiccup, I’m here, on time as you requested!” she called out. “What did…you…oh my.”

She trailed off and looked around as she slid off of Thorn, jaw going slack as she took in the view.

I had helped Hiccup gather and arrange some of the early spring flowers that had begun to appear on the mountain slopes after the Toothless fiasco had been dealt with: blue and violet asters, irises, and violas, amongst others. They lined the ground and the rock walls, coloring what once was drab grey rock and forming a path that wound along the edge of the pond toward the grove of trees adorning the far end of the cove.

Astrid turned to look at me in confusion and curiosity, obviously wondering both why I was there and why there were suddenly flowers everywhere. I only smiled however, keeping the small camera in my grasp hidden (a request from Hiccup), and gestured that she should follow the path that had been made. Astrid nodded absently, and as she walked past, attention elsewhere, I raised the camera again, starting the recording.

As Astrid left the pond’s edge and stepped into the trees, (each one laced with white flowers), she spotted Hiccup standing in the middle, hands clasped behind his back and a flushed, anxious yet elated expression on his face. Astrid glanced around again, before smiling and gesturing with her hands at the display.

“Well, it’s…it’s beautiful, Hiccup, but what’s this all for?” she asked. “It must be a special occasion, but I don’t know any holidays or anyone’s birthday coming up soon.”

“It’s…it’s not a birthday Astrid,” Hiccup said quietly, stepping up to her. “It’s something far more special. Astrid, just how much have we been through together now, and how long have we both known we’ve had feelings for each other?” He gave a sheepish smile, and grasped her hand. “I’ve liked you since, well, at least since I was only like four years old, and since about six years ago it’s…it’s become something so much more.

“We’ve fought side by side, fought for each other, with each other, come to know each other like no one else ever could at times. I…well, I just can’t wait any longer for this.”

Hiccup dropped to one knee, reached into his pocket with his free hand, and pulled out the box, opening it to reveal the ring that he had spent months planning and forging.

Astrid’s breath hitched.

“Astrid, I love you,” Hiccup stated plainly, smiling like a fool but speaking as if nothing could refute his words. “Will…will you marry me, give me the honor of becoming my wife, my mate?”

The cove went dead silent, not even birds calling, as Astrid clapped a hand over her mouth, pulling away for a moment as she looked around with tears welling up in her eyes.

Hiccup’s smile began to fall slightly at the reaction, concern rising as he stood up. “A-Astrid? You okay?” he asked worriedly. “Did I say something wrong?”

Astrid shook her head, but said nothing, only adding to his stress.

“What is it then?” Hiccup stepped forward, and Astrid finally brought her hand down from her mouth, revealing an unreadable expression marked by falling tears. Then…

WHAMM!

“Ow! That was my elbow, what was that for?!” Hiccup cried out, rubbing his arm.

“That,” Astrid said pointedly, a smirk growing on her face now, “was for taking so darn long to finally get around to it!”

“Really?!” Hiccup protested. “All that talk last year about not being ready and suddenly you’ve been waiting for”-

“Things change, Hiccup, and I think this past year has been change enough to ensure neither of us wanted to wait any more,” Astrid urged, cutting him off as she grabbed his hands. “And this”- she drew him into a sudden, deep kiss, one that lasted for a good fifteen seconds and had me on the verge of gagging, “-this is to say yes. Yes, I will.”

Hiccup stumbled back, a delirious smile on his face now as Astrid looked at him with amusement, still crying over the proposal. “I…well…gaaahhhhh…” he spluttered incoherently.

“Oh joy, I’ve turned your mind to mush,” Astrid teased, grabbing him again and pulling him to her, pecking his lips a second time (mercifully shorter). “Come on, lover boy, I say yes and you’re supposed to have a plan for afterward too!”

“Right…uh,” Hiccup said, his senses slowly coming back to him now. “We-we need to go to the village, let everyone know. I, uh, already talked to your mother about this, and we have her full blessing, and my dad…well, you already know what he’s been hoping for, for years now.”

They both giggled, before glancing my way, and I tactfully tried to hide away the camera now that I was done recording before Astrid spotted it; that was to be a surprise for later. “We’ve actually got two big announcements to break to everyone,” Hiccup amended, smiling widely.

Astrid looked between him and I, confused. “Why, what else happened?”

I grinned. “Let’s just say I’ll be planning the fireworks for the wedding,” I chuckled, flaring a pair of black wings I had not borne for over four months. “This is a day we’re all going to put down in history, Astrid,” I continued lightly, watching her eyes light up a second time. “The Hooligan heir is betrothed, to one of the most revered warriors in the archipelago no less, and your brother the dragon boy is back as best man. So come on, let’s go celebrate!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Hiccup was warned...but Toothless should know better.  
> Anyway, yes; Hawken's abilities are back. Looking back I feel like I ought to have stretched out the interim longer (and there may or may not yet be a possibility of a one-shot series that might include scenes from that time), but there's a reason they returned, and more than just I wanted my character to still be able to turn into a dragon. But, the lessons to be learned for that are to come later...


	43. Epilogue: Limitless

_We are limitless, limitless!_

_Limitless, limitless!_

_The power of love_

_Alive in us, yeah!_

_Limitless, limitless!_

_Unstoppable and nothing less_

_Oh, nothing can hold us now_

_We are limitless!_

_-Colton Dixon, Limitless_

Richard paused as he stepped out of the car to take one more surreptitious glance around; he felt fidgety as he moved to walk up to the banking firm ahead, an unusual sensation for the black-haired man.

It certainly wasn’t the first heist he’d ever pulled, but for whatever reason, today just felt a bit off. After a moment though he shrugged it off as just nerves, and pulled open the door by its carved metal handle, stepping inside as he pulled down the thick stocking cap on top of his head and zipping up his jacket, shadowing his face though not outright hiding it. He could blame his actions as covering against the frigid air inside the building (why did they always keep these places freezing?), but to actually cover his face would be outright suspicious. His accomplice was supposed to already be inside, and if all went well no one would even know anything happened until they had already left.

The building was fairly quiet, especially for such a typical Tuesday afternoon in late May, but the silence didn’t bother Richard; fewer witnesses, after all, if something did go wrong. He made his way toward one of the teller windows and stood just outside the short line, looking past as if expecting someone from another part of the firm to meet him as he waited for the signal. The other customers tossed him some odd glances, but he just smiled them off, making them shake their heads and go back to their own business; it didn’t concern them, why should they care where he stood?

As the minutes ticked by, however, Richard was starting to grow impatient. Ty was supposed to have already obtained the codes to the safe; he knew the guy had already snagged a badge to get in back early that morning, so something was holding him up now and that almost never ended pleasantly.

Sure enough, three minutes later on he got his answer.

WHEET! WHEET! WHEET! WHEET!

Richard winced at the sound of the alarm going off throughout the building, noting with pointed displeasure the development of panicked looks on the customers nearby. They hadn’t reacted ridiculously yet, but it was only a matter of time.

Moments later, a thin man with a mop of dirty blond hair came speed-walking into the lobby, the shirt bottom of his suit hanging out in a disheveled manner as he hoisted a briefcase in his right hand.

“Sorry man,” he apologized quietly as he approached Richard, “they had another security mechanism I didn’t know about, triggered the alarms in the middle of it. Come on though; we’ve got it, let’s go!”

Richard groaned as he fell in step behind Ty, both of them making haste toward the from door; figures, the one time he let someone else go for the safe while he hung back as backup they upped the security measures. From the back where Ty had appeared a security officer rushed out to intercept and apprehend them, only to stumble and dive behind a nearby lounge chair when Richard pulled out a pistol and popped off a shot as warning.

The screams that now came from by the teller windows made him scowl even further; the gun he’d had only as a preliminary precaution and this was exactly what he’d wanted not to happen. He had no interest in killing or even hurting anyone, but it also wouldn’t do them any more good to get caught either.

With the path cleared for now though, the two of them bolted out the door, skidding around the side of their getaway Cadillac and jumping in without a moment to slow down.

“Alarms triggered, get going already Don!” Richard yelled to the 30-something brunette man in the driver’s seat. Donald immediately shoved the vehicle into reverse, tires squealing as they backed out, before spinning the car around and streaking out of the parking lot.

“Dammit, you know this means we have to get out of the state pronto now too, right?” he growled, spinning the wheel and racing down the side road toward the interstate. “We could have picked any other location, one that would have been so much quieter if something like this had occurred, but you guys insisted that we could go for the big money straight off! What happens if-?”

“Just shut up and drive, Donald!” Ty snapped, clicking open the briefcase in the back seat and scanning the contents. “We’ve got a couple hundred thousand in cash, maybe more if the bars here are actually platinum like you said they would be Rick. We get to one of the rendezvous points and we can be home free from there no problem!”

“Yeah, the only real issue is getting there without being caught first!” Richard muttered. “It’s a couple of hours’ drive time as is and that’s if…”

His eyes caught the lights blaring off in the distance through the rear-view mirror as he trailed off, and he twisted around to look out the back window.

“Damn it! Drive Don, drive! We’ve got cops coming up behind us already!”

Donald swore, and floored it, swerving up the on-ramp to the interstate and punching the gas as he cut off another vehicle in the near lane. Cars around them honked and swerved as they sped by, weaving through traffic like it was standing still.

Richard smiled for once; Don was an expert at on-the-road outmaneuvering, so as long as they had at least moderate traffic for cover, the cops would never catch up to them. For a while too, there were plenty of vehicles between them and the cops.

His expression tanked when they reached a stretch of open highway however, and behind them the police vehicles emerged from the slowing traffic and sped up themselves. He groaned, and rolled down the window, reaching out with his pistol and firing when they got too close for comfort. Aiming for the tires, he managed to hit the lead car, sending it skidding and crashing into a second next to it, taking them both out, but several others swerved around the block and kept coming.

“Get me the bigger one!” Richard yelled, holding out his hand. Ty dropped to the floor and scrambled around for a moment, before coming back up with a rifle that he handed to Richard.

Richard smiled again and flicked off the safety on his new toy, tossing his pistol into the bottom of the car before letting loose several rounds from the larger weapon. The bullets peppered the side of the police vehicles, hitting one more tire to better effect but mostly just slowing the rest down only slightly.

Then, fire was returned, one bullet shattering their back window and forcing Ty to drop to the floor again. Richard swore in Technicolor and let off another round before Donald yelled, “Traffic coming up! We’ll lose them in here!”

“Finally!” Richard exclaimed, pulling his head and arms in as they swept by the first car, swerving and weaving rapidly through as the chaos behind them slowed the police down once more, giving the three thieves a lead.

“Alright!” Ty yelled. “We’ve got a chance now, don’t let”-

THUD!!

All three of them jerked in shock and clamped their mouths shut at the heavy, ominous sound that emanated from the top of their Cadillac.

“The hell just hit my car?!” Donald spat, his voice tinging with concern despite his attempt to keep his cool.

Richard shook his head and leaned toward the window again, holding the rifle upward. “I don’t know,” he muttered, “but I’m gonna find-!”

SKKRRREEEEEEE!

The trio cringed as the sound of ripping metal echoed through the car, and two sets of long, sharp, black objects suddenly pierced down through the roof of the vehicle between Donald and Richard. A third and fourth set shattered the glass of the rear passenger windows, gripping the sides of the frame tightly.

Ty yelped first when the car suddenly lurched, and then they all screamed when it left the road entirely, rising up into the air. Donald stopped pressing the gas, and in the sudden quiet they all heard the rhythmic pulsing of air outside over the faint hum of the engine, combined with a flickering shadow that appeared on both sides of the car in sync with the noise.

“What the hell is going on?!” Ty whispered, eyes wide in disbelief.

Richard didn’t have an answer for him, too preoccupied with the fact that they were no longer either in contact with terra firma or above the highway anymore, if his limited field of view out the window was anything to go by. Donald, too, was without response.

Then, the objects in the roof and sides of the car disappeared with a painful screech of metal, and they all felt themselves free-falling.

“AAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

WHAM!

It was a relatively short drop, but the impact was enough to daze them for several seconds, before registering that the car was clearly not going anywhere fast any more as they shakily reached for handholds to pull themselves up from the heaps they’d collapsed into.

Then they received another shock as the party responsible for their current predicament landed in front of their car, front paws slamming hard into the Cadillac’s already warped hood and denting it deeply.

Richard had seen the original How to Train Your Dragon, so he recognized the general shape of a Night Fury, only this one was a lot larger than the character he remembered, and bore claws more akin to a Nightmare than the blunt toes Toothless had. As they watched, too stunned to move, it began to shrink, rapidly losing the massive wings and scales to be replaced by a young man dressed in a decorated black coat standing in front of their car and glaring at them.

“Drop your weapons and exit the car with your hands up!” the man ordered, punctuating his statement with a gleaming sword materializing in his hands. “Do so quietly and no further repercussions will be levied against you! You are under arrest!”

Donald was the first to panic, slamming his door open and bolting in the opposite direction as best as his shaky legs would carry him, as Ty and Richard came out both with weapons drawn in their hands; after all, even a dragon wasn’t faster than a bullet, was he?

Donald quickly ran into worse luck, two more dragons landing in front of him and forcing him to skid to a halt, changing directions sloppily in his panicked state. From their backs leapt two more figures, one a lithe young blonde woman and the other a reptile Donald could have sworn he’d seen in a Jurassic Park movie. Both of them quickly outran him, the raptor kicking out a leg and dropping Donald to the ground before pinning him securely as the woman slowed down in front with a pair of cuffs in her hands.

“Good work Rachel,” she said, grabbing Donald’s wrists and clipping them in. “Oh, foolish robber; don’t you know nobody outruns a Metaraptor?”

Richard, meanwhile, had fired a shot at the man who had previously been in dragon’s skin, only to find his bullet freezing midair and dropping to the ground uselessly. Moments later the young man swung his sword forward, slicing Richard’s rifle in half, and Richard dropped the gun half in shock, half in realizing he couldn’t win. Wisely, Ty did the same behind him as a third new dragon landed nearby, his rider brandishing a bow that nearly everyone in the country had come to recognize.

“I-I thought you lost your powers!” Richard finally exclaimed when his brain managed to start functioning rationally again, his thoughts rushing back to him at realizing just how out-gunned (now literally) they were.

The character he now recognized as Hawken only smiled. “A temporary loss was all it was apparently,” he drawled. “Seems some things are meant to stick around. I, for one, am not questioning it.” He walked forward, glancing toward the highway nearby where the police cars were finally reaching them again. “You, however, are going to permanently lose whatever you took since you will be taking a nice, long trip to a cozy prison cell where you get to think about your actions. Oh, let’s see, there’s robbery at federal felony level, resisting arrest, firing at a cop car, attempted murder for trying to shoot me…”

Hawken grinned darkly, two pairs of cuffs materializing in his hands in place of the sword. “Yeah, you’re done for, my dear acquaintances!”

* * *

We all ended up laughing for twenty minutes straight over the events of the day when we returned to Berk. One of our first calls in for assistance from the state police force, and it went quite well. Amusingly so, in fact!

“His face though, when Rachel tackled him, it was priceless!” Astrid giggled off to the other post-teens, who’d gathered to hear how the endeavor went. “I mean, it’s not something to do every day, but just for getting a little stress out every now and then this sort of thing is great.” She turned to look pointedly at Snotlout and the twins. “However, we are _not_ letting any of you guys go out alone.”

“Aww, come on, you guys just like to suck all the fun out of it!” Snotlout complained.

“And you guys are reckless at all opportunities so it’s a fair trade,” Hiccup shot back, before turning to look at Toothless, the Night Fury sauntering down the road toward where we sat in the plaza after he’d gone up to visit the Haddock household. “Hey bud! How’s Amethyst and company?”

“Still doing fine, and she’s got Valka for company at the moment so they mostly ignored me,” Toothless announced, smiling softly. “All the eggs are still doing well. I can’t believe this is actually happening still.”

Amethyst had been given a nesting room off the side of the Haddock house, just under Hiccup’s window actually, and she’d found need of it for almost a week straight now. After much waiting and hoping, the female Night Fury had laid five perfectly healthy eggs, each one slick-shelled, ovular, and black as obsidian. Everyone in the village was now anxiously holding their breath as we awaited the arrival of the first hatchling Night Furies to be born in over twenty years, and none more so than the two doting parents.

“Hawken, Hiccup!”

We turned to see Twintail gliding down toward us, Zipeau on his back holding a short piece of paper.

“We received a call from Rickheimer just a little bit ago,” Zipeau said, jumping off and handing me the slip. “It’s very short notice and he apologizes for that, especially since we all only just started getting used to helping local law enforcement, but there’s been an insurgence rising up in Guyana and they looked to the US for help. Rickheimer wants to know if we can possibly spare anyone to lend a hand.”

I glanced toward Hiccup, Astrid, and then Ember, noting the simultaneous smiles they developed on their faces, and felt I knew their answers.

“Heh, the wedding’s not for another couple of months, right?” Astrid asked, glancing at her fiancé. “We can spare a few days, I’m sure.”

“Huh, I’ll go let Amethyst know I’ll be gone for a bit,” Toothless sighed, though he didn’t hide a grin either as he bounded back up toward the house.

“Hey, no fair! I can’t go!” Ruffnut complained, gesturing to herself. “Lady with a baby here!”

“Eh, don’t worry sis, we’ll bring you back a souvenir,” Tuff teased, before he paused, a look of confusion eclipsing his former snarky expression. “Wait, what’s an ‘insurgence’ again?”

“Oh, what’s it matter, not like they could stop us anyway!” Snotlout exclaimed with a wave of his hand, puffing out his chest.

Hiccup chuckled. “You know, ignoring the ego behind it for once I agree with him,” he said. “Let’s see, we managed to come against demons, a sorceress, a madman who nearly destroyed on world”-

“And we kicked butt all over the place!” Snotlout interjected, earning a glare from Hiccup.

“-so why not a little exercise? The world could always use a few more people learning what’s actually good for them, right? Get folks to realize where we stand and maybe we can prevent any real blow-ups in the future.”

“Well, I’m going to draw that it’s a unanimous yes then,” I said. “Zipeau, message Rickheimer back; we’re in, at least for a week or so. Hey, first trip for us to South America too, could be fun for a vacation afterward!”

We all looked between each other, feeling ready to take on anything again, and Hiccup laughed at our shared enthusiasm before drawing his team sword, holding it up high.

“Alright gang, let’s do this!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, what was originally going to be the final chapter of the Two Worlds Collide series comes to a close....  
> But inspiration struck me again a couple years ago, just as I was finishing up typing the final draft of this, and turns out I had another story that needed to be told. There was another villain who needed exploring, the greater vastness of Hiccups' world too, and...well, some characters worming their way in that have become as pivotal in my creative inspirations as Hiccup and Toothless oiginally were to start the art and writing off. So, if you've made it this far, join me in at least one more tale....the Search for Tsefan begins next.


End file.
